FOV Cavalier of the Year, 2011: #3/#4

From Old Virginia celebrates its birthday in a unique way: by recognizing one of Virginia's student-athletes as the Cavalier of the Year. What are the criteria for the award? You decide; that's the beauty. I nominate the 12 athletes that I think have been the most outstanding during the latest season of UVA athletics, and provide a short summary of their accomplishments. You choose the winner in a poll that goes up after all 12 have had their moment in the spotlight.

Over the next two weeks, two athletes at a time will be profiled, and you'll hear about what they've accomplished while representing Mr. Jefferson's University this year. The athletes are presented in a totally random order so as to hopefully not imply any endorsement one way or another. Athletes from all fields are considered; part of the point is to emphasize that UVA is about excellence across the entire department and doesn't shortchange its so-called non-revenue sports simply because they don't make headlines. The previous winners are Danny Hultzen (2009) and Diego Restrepo (2010); today's athlete's are Danny Hultzen and Matt McLean.

Danny Hultzen - Baseball - Starting pitcher

Team accomplishments:

- ACC champions
- #1 seed in NCAA tournament
- Super-regional host
- Advanced to College World Series (and hopefully more to come)
- Most wins in a season in school history

Personal accomplishments:

- Set career and single-season UVA strikeout records
- Drafted #2 overall in MLB draft by Seattle Mariners
- Golden Spikes finalist
- Dick Howser trophy semifinalist
- First three-time All-American in UVA baseball history
- First-team Academic All-American
- ACC Pitcher of the Year
- Baseball America Midseason POY
- Two-time Collegiate Baseball and one-time NCBWA National Pitcher of the Week

Lemme start by making one thing perfectly clear: Danny Hultzen is probably not yet done racking up awards.  The Golden Spikes and Dick Howser awards are both given out as national player of the year awards by different organizations; neither has announced a winner yet.  Hultzen is one of three finalists for the former and if he's not a finalist for the latter they should shut down the award.  He will be.  And he'll pick up any number of

There's nothing he doesn't do well.  His pitching arm is what earned him the #2 overall pick in the draft, a fast-track-to-the-majors kind of honor that, depending on how sucky the Mariners are to finish the year, could actually see him in Seattle by September.  He's that damn good.  A 1.57 ERA, 148 strikeouts, and 17 walks.  The numbers just speak for themselves.

But wait - he also hits!  Pitchers are obviously not well known for their hitting prowess, except if that pitcher is Danny Hultzen, who bats .336.  And if that weren't enough, check out that academic all-American thing, which is selected by CoSIDA, the sports information director's club.  The selection dates back to 1952 and Hultzen is only the 17th Hoo to ever be selected - in any sport.  With only 11 baseball players across the country, it's not an easy list to make, and nobody but Danny Hultzen is both an athletic and academic all-American.  Simply astounding.  Maybe the best baseball player in UVA history.

Matt McLean - Men's swimming - Distance freestyle

Team accomplishments:

- ACC champions
- 8th place finish at NCAA meet, best in school history

Personal accomplishments:

- 500-yard freestyle NCAA champion
- Five-event All-American
- 2-time ACC Swimmer of the Year
- WINA Award as UVA's top male athlete of 2010-2011
- 3-time ACC Swimmer of the Championships
- 500-yard freestyle and 1650-yard freestyle ACC champion
- Selected to represent the US at the World University Games
- 3-time ACC Performer of the Week

Matt McLean is probably not the best swimmer in UVA history, but that's not fair because Ed Moses was a damn Olympic gold medalist and unlikely to be topped.  But McLean is a member of an exclusive club that until this year only included Moses and one other swimmer: NCAA champion from UVA.  McLean absolutely dominated the 500-yard freestyle, winning by over 2 seconds, and finished fourth in both the 200 free and 1650 free.

Course, being out front is something he's pretty used to, winning two events in the ACC championships and anchoring two more first-place relays.  You earn all-American and all-ACC honors by placing in the top eight and top three, respectively, and McLean stacked those up like candy on Halloween.

And remember, while you're deciding who gets your vote for the FOV COY, this is the guy that was honored by UVA itself as the best male athlete of the year.  McLean wraps up his career this year as a senior, and Ed Moses might put his Olympic medals in McLean's way for greatest UVA swimmer of all time, but McLean makes an awfully, awfully compelling case for next-best.

weekend review

So it's back to the grind. Losing by 19 to Boston College, if nothing else, serves to remind us of the cavernous talent (and more importantly, experience) chasm separating this basketball team from the rest of the ACC. Various game reports opened by wondering what to point to in order to explain the blowout - or more specifically, the total lack of ability to play either offense or defense in the second half. The answer is simple: the implicit conclusion from last week's column that this team has been playing way over their heads. At some point that has to be expected to catch up to you.

You are now forbidden, for your own health, from uttering the word "NIT." I suppose it doesn't especially matter what happens for the rest of the season, but since Tony Bennett is still Tony Bennett it's not like the team is going to agree with that. Worse teams than this one have made the CBI, and even if that's the only tournament we get invited to we should accept. It's probably a money-loser, but this is the most profitable athletic department in the conference and what good is making all that money if you don't spend it on something like that? This team needs to cram as much basketball into its gullet as possible. And even if the only thing we have to look forward to this year is three more losses to end the season, we'll always have Paris, where "Paris" is code for "sweeping the Hokies right the hell out of the arena."

Speaking of the Hokies: Fuck you, Duke. Seriously. You run roughshod over the entire conference for three decades and then the one time I want you to actually take care of business and crush someone, you choke like Monica on the President's cigar. I hope when Coach K retires you hire Matt Doherty.

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OK, now that the profanity is out of the way let's talk about things that make us happy, like lacrosse and baseball.

I don't know whether to worry or not about the start of the lacrosse season. Yes, 3-0 is a good thing, and Drexel is no slouch of a team and Stony Brook is potential final four material, so beating them is great. Beating them without the suspended Bratton twins is pretty incredible.

That said, why the rash of suspensions? First Ghitelman and now both Rhamel and Shamel, and both for games of importance. Let's hope this is Starsia's way of reacting to the problems of last year and clamping down on stuff that he wasn't clamping down on before. And let's hope the team gets the message.

Discipline problems aside, this why there's such a thing as Steele Stanwick. Five goals against Stony Brook, including the OT game-winner, should tell you who the team sees as their go-to guy, especially when last year's second-line midfield of Haldy, Briggs, and Emery is suddenly the first-line midfield. The Brattons got the preseason hype and they'll be creating all the highlight goals, but Stanwick might well be the irreplaceable one.

The Stone-Age lack of TV means I'm still at a loss for individual observations, and tonight's VMI game won't add anything to what we know. Fortunately, it's Syracuse on Friday.

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I might be waffling on the lacrosse team, but not the baseball team. Despite losing on Sunday and allowing East Carolina to avoid the sweep, the start to the season has been fantastic. Danny Hultzen, of course, sparkles as the Friday starter. Fifteen strikeouts and top-notch work with the bat earned him National Player of the Week honors from Collegiate Baseball. (Seriously, read that article. Hultzen's pitching on Friday was as dominant as you can get short of throwing a perfect game.) Hultzen's dominance is to be marveled at, and should result in all kinds of recognition, gaudy numbers, and Friday evening victories as the season goes on.

But we've kind of been counting on that. The same for Tyler Wilson's excellent job on Saturdays. Wilson's an excellent pitcher too, and we knew that. Even though Cody Winiarski took the Sunday loss with one bad inning, I'm more encouraged by his play than by that of anyone else so far this season. Winiarski has struck out six in each of his two starts, almost doubling his K rate from last season. A weekend rotation without a hole in it means lofty ACC expectations; this is probably the top rotation in the conference and should result in a solid 20 conference wins and maybe then some. This is an awesome development. This is how you live up to people calling you "one bad machine."

I was going to get moving with a full-out preview of the season this week, but actually it'll probably have to wait til next week when the basketball regular season is done.

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And now, the rest of the story:

- Ralph Sampson, Hall-of-Famer. My initial reaction was this would've happened fifteen years ago if Sampson were a Dookie. Instead he played for lowly - which wasn't at all lowly at the time - Virginia. After all, Sampson is a member of a three-time-NPOY club that includes just two other players - Oscar Robertson and Bill Walton. Screw the man, man. Then I remembered that the NCBHOF is only like four or five years old, and Sampson wouldn't have been part of the (absolutely enormous) founding class because he's not in the big HOF on account of a mediocre NBA career. Still, how does Ralph Sampson, Three-Time-National-Player-Of-The-Effing-Year Ralph Sampson, have to wait behind Christian Laettner for his turn? Oh, right: Duke, and Not Duke.

Anyway, justice is done. The fact that a College Basketball Hall of Fame could exist as an institution with a building and everything and not have Ralph Sampson inside it was silly. Now it's not.

- Swimmers rock. The men's team, as predicted, made it two-for-two at the ACC Swimming & Diving championships. The meet, as not predicted, wasn't even close. 232 points separated UVA and 2nd-place UNC, which is more points than four of the competing teams achieved at all.

The meet's MVP was distance swimmer Matt McLean for the third time in four years. Other event winners: sprinter Scot Robison and butterflyer Peter Geissinger. The tone of the meet was pretty well set in the first individual event - the 500-yard freestyle - where Virginia swimmers took 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 8th. For those keeping score at home, the meet's over so you can put your pencils away, but that's still 92 of the event total 155 points. In one event UVA scored more than Boston College or Miami combined.

Nationals are next, where hopefully top-10 finishes await both the men and women.

- Can't let this go without a recruiting board update. But first, something even better. A map. I put together a Google Map of the recruiting board. It's color-coded and everything, although the red is kinda pink. And the orange looks red if you don't have the pink near it to compare it to. Blame Google's pastel coloring. Anyway, the link will have a permanent home on the recruiting board page so you can check it out whenever.

Now, the update:

- Added RB Kye Morgan and WR Drakar Harvell to yellow. Both might be green, but for a couple mitigating factors: Morgan lives almost literally in the shadow of Rutgers The SUNJ, and Harvell needs an offer. Harvell will eventually get one, I think, at which time he'll be instabumped to green or blue.

- Moved DT Korren Kirven from yellow to red.

- Moved ATH Cyrus Jones from red to yellow. Jones hails from Gilman - Darius Jennings's alma mater.

Full schedule this week (that's code for "I don't have to pull anything from my ass this week"): I'll preview the NC State game, and lacrosse's Syracuse game. I don't know if I'll preview the Maryland game, as we're destined to be killed by a team we match up with exceedingly poorly. As much as I enjoy this very likable version of our basketball team, I am really looking forward to spring sports.

FOV Cavalier of the Year, #7/#8

First some quick baseball links as the CWS approaches. Excited?

There are previews at the ACC Sports Journal (a UVA-only page, that one) and Baseball America (for the whole field, but very favorable indeed toward the Hoos), and a quasi-preview chat at ESPN.

Congratulations are also in order to the five Cavaliers drafted in the MLB draft this week:

- Andrew Carraway in the 12th round to the Mariners
- Jeff Lorick in the 20th round to the Braves
- Robert Poutier in the 29th round to the Padres
- Matt Packer in the 32nd round to the Indians
- Tyler Cannon in the 41st round to the Pirates

You have to figure the juniors (that's Lorick, Packer, and Cannon) will take their chances and come back for another year. Especially Packer, who would probably have gone at least twice as high if he'd been eligible last year.

OK - the standard blurb, then on to the next two finalists.


The official From Old Virginia Birthday is June 10, at which time this blog marks its first year of publication. For the birthday celebration, we - that is, me, and you the readers - will name the FOV Cavalier of the Year. My job is to pick the twelve finalists and write a few words about each that tell you all about their accomplishments. Your job is easier: to vote in the poll that will run once all twelve are finished.


Two of the finalists will be highlighted each day this week, through Saturday. They're in random order with no rhyme or reason implied or intended. Today: Matt McLean and Danny Hultzen.

Matt McLean - Men's swimming - Distance freestyle













Team accomplishments:

- 10th ACC championship in 11 years
- 9th place finish at NCAA championships (best finish ever)

Personal accomplishments:

- First swimmer in ACC history to earn ACC Championship MVP two years in a row
- Third place and All-American finish at NCAA championships in 500-yard freestyle
- Three honorable mention All-American finishes at NCAA championships
- Broke four individual and relay ACC records at championship meet

Like the women, the men also have the ACC wrapped around their pinky finger in the pool. Matt McLean and Mei Christensen bring a little bit of a different talent set to the starting blocks; Christensen is a multi-stroke star, McLean owns all the distance races. The results are the same, though: medals, and lots of 'em. Distance swimmers like to point out how many yards they swim at a meet as compared to sprinters, and it ought to be noted that McLean swam over three miles at the ACC championships and, having set records in pretty much all his events, did it faster than anyone in the ACC - ever. Having made plenty of history in the pool, he capped it off with one more bit of history: the first swimmer to earn ACC championship meet MVP two years in a row, which is impressive enough without me having to mention that he's only a sophomore. But I did anyway.

Danny Hultzen - Baseball - P/1B













Team accomplishments:

- Advanced to College World Series (and maybe later on we'll be able to say better, yes?)
- ACC champions
- Undefeated at ACC tournament and at NCAA regional
- 48 wins (and counting) is highest total in team history
- Last team in the nation to lose a game

Personal accomplishments:

- ACC Freshman of the Year
- NCBWA Freshman All-American and second team All-American
- Named to USA Baseball National Team Trials
- ACC Pitcher of the Week after striking out 13 against TFSU
- Leads team in IP with 86, ERA among eligible pitchers at 2.09, and wins with a 9-1 record
- Batting .333; perfect on 8-of-8 steal attempts

If you don't know by now that this is the best baseball season UVA has ever achieved, then you never cared much about it to begin with. And they've done it without a lot of real star power. There's no Stephen Strasburg or Dustin Ackley. That said, there will be real star power in a couple years when Danny Hultzen has grown up a bit. Even now he's the one bringing in all the honors, and there are certainly a lot of honors. But there's a bit of that Sylven Landesberg loyalty to the school, too, which is more than admirable. See, Hultzen was a draft prospect out of high school. A big-time draft prospect. Like, top five rounds. Maybe first round. He chose college instead, and went out of his way to tell major-league teams he wanted that college experience. Even then, he was taken in the 10th round. Hultzen would be a millionaire and pitching, probably, at the very least in high-A ball right now, maybe AA, had he spurned UVA, and few would blame him. Instead he's in Omaha right now, and it's a safe bet neither he nor his teammates would be if he'd gone pro out of high school.