Charlottesville, VA (cvillerightnow.com):A manic week in UVA athletics last week was punctuated by the tragic events over the weekend at Florida State University.  Baseball’s three game set with the Seminoles has been cancelled following their 10-3 defeat at Liberty (full report HERE), and they will make ready for two midweek clashes this week, two 6:00pm home clashes with Georgetown and JMU on Tuesday and Wednesday, before a road trip to Georgia Tech for a weekend series on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 6:00pm Friday, 4:00pm Saturday, and 1:00pm Sunday.  Newsradio WINA will carry the Friday and Sunday games!  Elsewhere, Softball had a series with Louisville in which a few all-time offensive career marks were set, Women’s Lacrosse entered the Commonwealth Clash, and Tennis entered the ACC championships.   

#25 Virginia Softball went to work against Louisville on Thursday night but fell in an extra inning thriller to begin the series with a 6-5 defeat.  Full report HERE, but Jade Hylton did hit her 14th of the year to move into sole occupation of second place on Virginia’s all-time homer list.  The Hoos took the field Friday to try and even the series in front of the home crowd.  In game two, they would have no trouble blasting the Cardinals out of a Palmer Park with a five run fourth inning.  The frame featured an MC Eaton homerun, a Kelly Ayer RBI single, and two fielding errors to allow Virginia to jump out a 7-2 lead.  It all finished 8-2, and the series was even after another win on the mound from Eden Bigham.  The junior righty went the distance in game three and kept the Cards off the board, and with help from another Hylton homer and a Bella Cabral double, along with excellent station to station offense, the Hoos ran out 6-0 winners of the game, echoing their 6-0 shutout of Radford University earlier in the week. 2-1 winners in the series, Virginia prepares for its final five games of the regular season.  This week, they head to Harrisonburg Tuesday at 5:00pm to take on the JMU Dukes, before heading to the coast for a three game series with the Stanford Cardinal in Palo Alto.  Those three games will take place 6:00pm ET Friday, 2:00pm Saturday, and 12:00pm Sunday.  The Dukes are 21-22 after a series win against Southern Miss this past weekend which featured a 12-4 run rule victory in game one.  Meanwhile the Cardinal are 32-9, outplaying in-state rivals California for a series victory last weekend.   

#9 Women’s Lacrosse had the chance to have their say in the Commonwealth Clash on Wednesday when they took on the Virginia Tech Hokies at Klockner Stadium.  They blasted the Hokies 19-9 by way of six straight goals following the first two goals of the game scored by the Hokies.  The Hoos also began the second half with a 6-1 run and never looked vulnerable to conceding the lead throughout the game.  Midfielder Kate Galica set both the single-game and single-season total for draw controls, putting up 17 in the game to put her over the top in first all-time with 155.  A dominant performance for the Hoos put them in great position to start next week’s ACC tournament with bang.  More information about the Hoos’ draw will come later this week, but that is how the Hoos’ regular season ends.   

Later that week, Virginia Men’s Lacrosse headed to the home turf for a Senior Day battle with Lafayette on Saturday afternoon.  The Hoos were dynamite, outscoring the Leopards 5-1 in the first quarter, McCabe Millon and Truitt Sunderland each had three goals, and goalkeeper Matthew Nunes was able to notch 12 saves to keep the Leopard attack quiet. That snapped a losing skid of three-games before they will take on the #13 Duke Blue Devils at Klockner Stadium Saturday afternoon at 3:00pm.  You can listen to the game on Newsradio WINA.  Duke upset #8 Syracuse last time out 11-7.   

Both Tennis teams began their ACC championship runs this weekend, the #6 men’s team began second round play Thursday against SMU (who beat VT in the first round).  The Mustangs got the doubles point, along with one from Ofek Shimanov in singles play, but James Hopper shut down Louis Cloud to see off the match 4-2 in Virginia’s favor.  Up next was #10 Cal in the quarterfinals.  This time, Virginia won the doubles point, but Cal tied it up at 2-2 in singles play.  #26 Dylan Dietrich defeated Alex Chang, and Mans Dahlberg plunged in the knife for the 4-2 victory, and sent Virginia through to the semifinals, where they would take on the undefeated #1 Wake Forest.  Wake led after doubles, and after one match in singles play, but Jangjun Kim and #6 Rafael Jodar gave Virginia a lead.  Keegan Rice put the Hoos in striking distance before #10 DK Suresh Ekambaram kept the match alive for the Demon Deacons.  However, it would yet again be Mans Dahlberg to put the match away to help hand the Deacs their first loss of the year and send Virginia to the finals against the Stanford Cardinal.  This was the point the Hoos reached last year, and with a chance to face their demons down, they led after doubles.  Unfortunately, only #26 Dylan Dietrich was able to notch a win against the Cardinal in singles play, and they finished ACC runners-up for the second year in a row, 4-2. 

The #7 Women’s team began their run one day later on Friday in the Quarterfinals of the tournament.   Facing the California Golden Bears, UVA did not concede a single point to their opponents from doubles and into singles play, with the match ending 4-0.  #4 Duke was next, and even though they surrendered two points to #25 Emma Jackson and #83 Shavit Kimchi, #20 Sara Ziodato and Martina Genis Salas were able to pull ahead and lock down the match for Virginia, 4-2, to punch their way into to set up a revenge match against their rivals #8 UNC.  Unfortunately, that would be were the run of dominance ended, as the Heels blasted the Hoos 4-0 for a successive ACC title.  The NCAA bracket, that will hold the Hoos’ destiny, will be announced next Monday.   

Coming to the end of the rundown this week, but we cannot end without mentioning the stellar performances of Gary Martin and Celia Rifaterra, who both set facility records on day one at the Virginia Challenge at Lannigan Field in Charlottesville.  Rifaterra cleared 1.84 meters to top all female competitors in the High Jump competition, a facility record.  Martin for his part, smashed all competitors in the 5000 meters with a 13:16.82, ten seconds faster than the second place finisher, good for a new meet and school record.  Both marks were previously set by…himself.  Elsewhere, ACC match play saw the Virginia Women’s Golf team battle California at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro.  Megan Propeck and Abby Sambach won against their respective opponents, but the Hoos fell 3-2 to the Bears to see their run end.  They will be hosting a regional in the NCAA tournament at Birdwood beginning on May 5th however, so Hoo fans can look forward to that.  This week, it will be the Men’s turn to tackle ACC play beginning 4/24 and running through the 28th.  They finished second at the Chitengwa Memorial Tournament at Birdwood.  They’ll head to Kentucky for ACC championship action.  The Track team will head to the Penn Relays beginning Thursday, the Drake Relays beginning Wednesday, and some will hold the fort in Charlottesville for Virginia High Performance.   Another regatta also lies ahead for #13 Virginia Rowing, heading to the Lake Wheeler Invitational in Raleigh.   

That concludes your Wahoo Rundown this week.  See you next week, Support UVA Athletics!!!