Charlottesville, VA (cvillerightnow.com): Only Basketball remains in action as the first week of March begins, playoffs are upon us for the Cavalier Women, and quite soon for the Cavalier men.  Elsewhere, Cornell, Hofstra, and Seton Hall challenged Virginia Softball at home, Baseball faced Ivy League opposition, the Doyle Smith Cup was up for grabs for Virginia Lacrosse, and the Tennis teams entered the throws of conference play on the road in Chapel Hill and Dallas.   

Ron Sanchez’s team went up against solid opposition at the top of the ACC table last week.  Their challenge began on Wednesday, entering as underdogs in Winston-Salem against a talented Wake Forest team looking to prevent the Hoos from getting a crucial win for the hopes of tournament play.  The Deacons shot horribly from three-point land in the contest, Issac McKneely did not, notching 27 points and leading the way for the Hoos in a big upset win, 83-75.  Full report HERE, but with the win, they will control their own destiny with a conference tournament berth looming and three games left to play.  Saturday, on senior day though, was a different affair, and perfectly typifies the mixed-bag nature of this season for the Hoos.  The only ACC team to beat Duke, the Clemson Tigers, put up a solid 71 points against the struggling Hoos defense, and held UVA to 58 to see off a fairly predictable and expected contest, full report HERE.  Ahead is a 9:00 PM tip with 16-13 Florida State tomorrow night following a tough defeat to Duke, and the finish will be at the JMA Wireless Dome in upstate New York against the Syracuse Orange on Saturday at 8:00 PM.  Syracuse is 12-17 at time of writing, losing a tough one to Virginia Tech last time out, and they will face tomorrow SMU before the Virginia game on Saturday.   

The Virginia Women had their tournament berth almost locked up while they were on the road Thursday against an SMU team at the bottom of the table.  Coach Mox and the Hoos had little to do, and much to look ahead to, 63 points was enough to take the Mustangs down, and despite a shaky offensive game, there was just enough defensive effort to carry the day.  As a prize, they had a little momentum on the road going into the monumental task of upsetting the #8 ranked North Carolina Tar Heels in Chapel Hill.  UNC held control of the game throughout three and three quarters of the action, but Virginia took a page from their previous opponents’ playbook, sneaking back into the game quietly, and turned the tables on the Heels with a come-from-behind triumph, 78-75.  Full report HERE, and with the win, they confirmed their seeding in this week’s ACC tournament in Greensboro, they will be taking on the Pitt Panthers on Wednesday at 3:30 right here on WINA.  The Panthers, already defeated by the Hoos in the regular season, knocked Wake Forest off in their regular season finale, but finished the year 5-13 in conference play.   

Travel has been the order of the month for Virginia Baseball, and their record going into last week reflected it.  The squad, now ranked #10, was 3-3 entering what would, at last, be there home opener, delayed by snow.  The VMI Keydets were there opponents, and they gave the Hoos a good game, but a long grand slam by Chris Arroyo was enough to send the Keydets back to Lexington with nothing.  However, they did make it close, and the result was 6-4, UVA.  Now above .500 for the year, the Hoos battled the same team three days in a row for the first time all-season.  The 0-3 Dartmouth Big Green, after a close, hard-fought series with #16 Texas last weekend, continued their difficult start to the year, dropping three in a row to a Virginia offense that was finally given some breathing room to wake up, and wake up they did.  Only one game finished the full nine innings.  Game One saw the Hoos explode for 11 runs, beating Dartmouth 11-3 after a ten strikeout, six-inning performance from Jay Woolfolk.  Harrison Didawick got out of the blocks with his first homerun of the year, and first year shortstop Jackson Sirois went yard with his first of his collegiate career.   At the end of the game there was a scary moment between James Nunnalee and Aiden Harris, who collided together, causing Nunnalee to exit the game.  It turned out on Sunday he was completely fine; we’ll get to that in a moment.  Tomas Valincius won his second game of the year on Saturday and struck out nine more batters to lead the team.  Arroyo went yard again, and Chone James had a huge day, with three RBIs to run rule the Big Green in eight innings 11-1.  Bryson Moore took the mound on Sunday and lost control completely after 2/3s of an inning, surrendering two runs before Matt Lanzendorfer took over.  The Virginia Bullpen picked up the mess, giving up one run after six innings of work.  James Nunnalee started in the outfield again and proceeded to smack five hits batting in four rbi’s.  The rest of the offense was on fire too, Aidan Teel continued his stellar start to the year with two hits, along with Henry Godbout, and Trey Wells, who has staked his claim to the top of the depth chart at catcher.  Eric Becker also parked one in the stands for his first homer of the year to button up another run-rule victory, 13-3.  William and Mary and Boston College await the Hoos this week, the Tribe will be the mid-week opponents, with a 3:00pm first pitch Tuesday, and ACC play will open against Boston College this weekend. The Tribe are 4-7 fresh off a 7-6 heartbreaker against Penn State last time out.  The Eagles beat VCU on Sunday 4-3, and will play two more Virginia teams this week, Longwood and Richmond, Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.  This weekend’s games are at 4:00 on Friday, and 1:00 on Saturday and Sunday.  They are 4-4 on the year.   

Virginia Softball hosted another invitational this weekend, and the weekend was perfect in more ways than one.  It started on Friday with an eight run rout of Cornell in six innings, and was followed by an 11-6 drubbing on Seton Hall that featured three homeruns in the game.  Macee Eaton lifted off for three runs in the first, Kelsey Hackett barreled one up in the fourth, and Jade Hylton concluded the fireworks show with a bomb of her own in the sixth.  Eden Bigham’s strong relief outing in game two would earn her the win, and as it turned out, she was not done dazzling the fans last weekend, not by a long shot.  She took the mound in game two on Saturday after Seton Hall was ushered off again, this time to the tune of 18-5 in five innings.   The offense did more than enough to back her, scoring 17 runs in a five inning game, but Bingham struck out nine batters in five innings of work without giving up a baserunner, let alone a stain on her uniform.  It was the first perfect game by a UVA pitcher since Michelle Collins did it in 1994 against Coastal Carolina.  They put Hofstra down one final time on Sunday, 12-1 in five innings, but Bingham’s masterclass was the story of the weekend by far.  The Cavaliers will tune up against the Longwood Lancers on Tuesday at Palmer at 4:00 PM, before their first three-game road set in the ACC begins, and its against the Virginia Tech Hokies this weekend.  Games are at 6:00 PM on Friday, 2:00 PM on Saturday, and noon on Sunday.  Longwood lost a tough one in eight last time out against Central Michigan, 1-0, and they are 5-12 on the year.  As for the Hokies, they went 4-1 in their home invitational against Villanova, Penn State, Radford and James Madison this past weekend, and are 17-4 on the year so far.   

Virginia Lacrosse competes for the Doyle Smith Cup every year in the regular season against Johns Hopkins.  Every year the game lives up to its billing, and 2025 is no different.  Virginia outscored Hopkins 5-3 to start the game in the first quarter.  However, good goalkeeping from Hopkins and some costly turnovers allowed the Blue Jays to take a lead that they would never relinquish.  The Cavalier attack found a way back into the game in fourth, including a hat trick from Truitt Sunderland, but it was not enough.  The home team won the game 13-12, and the cup with it.  As for the Hoos, they head to Houston for neutral site contest with the Towson Tigers this week in Houston, who are 1-4 on the year after their first win, that was against UMBC on Saturday.   As for the Women’s team, they had a ranked battle in the middle of the week against #19 Navy that did not go so well for them.  The Hoos lost their defensive shape at just the wrong time in the fourth quarter to allow Navy back in the game, and four goals unanswered were enough to turn the game in the favor of the visitors.  #11 ranked UVA got back to winning ways quickly against Cal on the weekend, winning out comfortably 20-9 on the West Coast.  They will battle the Richmond Spiders and the #2 North Carolina Tar Heels this week.   The Spiders lost to #18 James Madison last time out and are 2-3 on the year.  The Heels are 5-0, beating Louisville 20-4 in their last match, and they’ll face Temple this week before their battle with UVA.   

Men’s Tennis headed to North Carolina to open ACC play against #15 Duke, and tackle UNC as well.  On Friday, James Hopper and Keegan Rice earned a win for the Hoos in doubles, and #17 Rafael Jodar earned an impressive singles victory alongside Rice to score Virginia’s only points against the Devils.  It was a rough way to begin the conference slate, finishing 5-2, Duke.  Against UNC on Sunday, Jodar, Hopper, Mans Dahlberg, and Jangjun Kim marched to victory against the Heels on the way to a 6-1 rout of the home team.  #5 Virginia comes home next weekend for battles with #10 NC State, and #1 Wake Forest on Friday and Sunday respectively.   

The top-ranked Cavalier Women headed to Dallas to take on SMU, and after the Mustangs won both doubles contests, the match looked interesting for the home team.  However, the starpower and deep bench the Hoos brought to Texas came to play, wins from the usual suspects, Sara Ziodato, Elaine Chervinsky, Martina Genis Salas, and Bianca Pico Navarro carried the day for UVA and finished the weekend battle up 4-3 in favor of the Hoos.  They hit the road against for matches with Wake Forest and #10 NC State on Friday and Sunday.   

That will bring our rundown to a close, Virginia Track and Field is in action during the ACC Indoor Championships at time of writing.  So far, five Hoos have finished on the podium in the conference title races.  On day one, Jeremiah Nubbe won the men’s weight throw with a 23.67m/77-8, first-year Keyandre Davis earned a bronze medal in the men’s weight throw with a 21.15m/69-4.75, and star distance runner Gary Martin earned silver in the 5000m with a blistering 13:30.69.  Day two saw Celia Rifaterra win bronze in the women’s high jump with a 1.83m/6-0, and Ethan Robinson put up 5747 points in the Men’s Heptathalon for a bronze medal in the event.  There will likely be more to come, we will have updates at the conclusion of the competition here on Cvillerightnow.com.   

This week, the golf teams will be Las Vegas and Florida, the squash teams head to Philadelphia for the CSA Team Championships, and wrestling heads to the ACC championships.  Enjoy the action this week and go Hoos!