2013 baseball recruiting class, part 2

Continuing the series begun last week, this post will serve as sort of a closing-down of the offseason, even though it's only July; tomorrow begins the ACC football previews, which we'll intersperse with various other football-type things as August rolls along.

Connor Jones - RHP
Great Bridge HS (VA)
Drafted: 21st round, San Diego Padres (628th overall)

By virtue of being the best prospect in the state of Virginia and a potential top-5-round pick (had he not committed to a school where signability is a legit concern for MLB scouts) Connor Jones is easily the most well-known member of the class.  (Jones, by the way, ended up just five picks behind UVA senior Reed Gragnani.)

Jones was named the top player in the state by just about everyone who did that, and was a very legit pro prospect.  He throws a 91-93 fastball that's reported by multiple sources to have a very good sinking action, a highly desirable trait for both college aces and pro prospects.  His second best pitch: probably his breaking ball, and he'll probably need to work some on his changeup before he's ready to be ace material.

That he dropped all the way to the 21st round is a function of his announcement that he would not sign in the MLB draft, not his talent; Keith Law rated him the 25th-best prospect in the draft and called him one of the draft's "few premium right-handed prep arms."  Obvious comparisons to a right-handed Nathan Kirby go here, as Jones has the same pedigree that Kirby did coming in.  Kirby's fastball proved awfully flat and hittable once he got to Charlottesville, and he spent the season making some headway on that but never really cracking the starting rotation.  In-stone predictions for Jones, therefore, would probably be unwise, but it's fair to assume he'll start off right in the mix for innings, whether as a starter or reliever.  And he appears to have the mental makeup and dedication to improve and succeed, so even with Kirby as a cautionary tale, there's no reason not to be excited about the possibilities.

Austin Nicely - LHP
Spotswood HS (VA)
Drafted: 10th round, Houston Astros (287th overall)

Nicely is a hard thrower for a lefty and would've made a solid left-handed addition to the staff, but we'll have to file him in the could've-been category; Nicely signed with the Astros for about a $610,000 bonus, which was more than $400,000 above his slot.

Daniel Pinero - INF
Western Tech. Inst. (ON)
Drafted: 20th round, Houston Astros (587th overall)

The 'Stros only went 1-for-2 with UVA prospects, though, as Pinero didn't sign with Houston.  Pinero is a big guy whose 6'6" size will probably put him at first base sooner or later, though he does prefer shortstop.  Pinero is a key part of Canada's junior national team, and in the 18U Pan Am championships in 2011, made the all-tournament team as a first baseman.

Perfect Game has a high opinion of Pinero, rating him a 10 of 10 as a prospect and suggesting that he does have the athleticism to play short or third base.  They also mention multiple times his line-drive hitting ability, and between that and his "projectable" frame (he's kind of long and skinny and at 6'6", 200, he could add another 20-30 pounds) he has potential to be exactly the kind of extra-bases hitter that BOC likes in the middle of the lineup.  Pinero might be in line for a few at-bats here and there as a first baseman in 2014, and might get a shot at third base as well; shortstop is out of the question with Brandon Cogswell around.  Long-term, that height probably consigns him to first base, but there's a great possibility he follows in Jared King's footsteps as a top-notch defender there and reliable hitter as well.

Jack Roberts - RHP
James River HS (VA)
Undrafted

Roberts can talk with Ben Carraway about what it'll be like to follow in the footsteps of an accomplished older brother at UVA; he is not only the younger brother of perfect-game tosser Will Roberts, but a high school teammate of Nathan Kirby as well.  With a name like Jack Roberts, he's the clear winner of this year's Hard to Google Award, but he's got a fastball that sits around 89-90 and still on its upward trajectory, and made Rawlings's all-region first team in the mid-Atlantic.  Also of importance: Roberts was the Richmond T-D's male scholar-athlete of the year this spring.

Righties will be a bit more plentiful on the roster next year than southpaws, and Roberts will find himself in a fight for innings.  It probably won't be til 2015 that he starts to be a major part of the mix, but at a minimum during his career he should provide good, solid depth.

Matt Thaiss - C
Jackson Memorial HS (NJ)
Drafted: 32nd round, Boston Red Sox (953rd overall)

Nate Irving handled so much of the catching load that it's plain he'll do the same next year, and it's not really even clear that he'll leave after the 2014 season as a junior.  With Robbie Coman looking like a decent bet for heir apparent, it's possible Matt Thaiss might have to wait a little while for his chance.

Might not be smart to bet against him either, though.  Thaiss's MLB scouting report described him as an "elite defensive catcher" and "has an advanced understanding of the game and plays aggressively."  High praise for a prep draft prospect.  Thaiss hit in high school for a relatively low average (in the .300s) as compared to a lot of high schoolers that routinely reach the .400s and .500s, but had decent power and went on a rampage in this spring's Carpenter Cup, which is a Philadelphia all-star tournament that pits regional all-star teams from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware against each other.  Thaiss doesn't have much of a path to the lineup as a freshman, but that MLB report is very encouraging and, if it pans out that way, will give Thaiss a clear path to eventually grabbing the starting role.

***************************************************

As a whole, this recruiting class doesn't need to carry the water for the future the way the past couple have done; the way the numbers have been shaking out means we're in a small cycle for this year and will probably see a much bigger class in 2014-15.  But there's not much filler here.  Connor Jones provides the star power, there's good pitching depth with guys like Adam Bleday and Jack Roberts, and I really like each of the position players' potential to work their way into the starting lineup in the future.

Don't be too worried, this year or any year, about the lack of high-level draftees.  UVA has cemented a nasty reputation among MLB teams as a black hole of signability.  Guys like Connor Jones drop from the 1st round to the 21st.  Players that might be drafted in the mid-20s just aren't bothered with.  It took a signing bonus of roughly 450% of the recommended slot to pry Austin Nicely away, and at this point, when a player says before the draft that he's not going to sign, teams take him at his word.  It makes draft position a fairly unreliable indicator of our incoming talent level.  It's not huge, so this isn't a class I'm over the moon about, but I like it.

game preview: South Carolina

Date/Time: Tuesday, June 21; 7:00 PM

TV: ESPN

History against the Gamecocks: 27-35

Last matchup: USC 8, UVA 2; 6/3/2006; NCAA Tournament, Charlottesville regional

Last game: UVA 4, Cal 1 (6/19); USC 5, Texas A&M 4 (6/19)

Blogs of the enemy: Garnet and Black Attack, Leftover Hot Dog

South Carolina possible lineup:

C: Robert Beary (.296-3-35)
1B: Christian Walker (.357-10-60)
2B: Scott Wingo (.350-4-28)
3B: Adrian Morales (.281-3-39)
SS: Peter Mooney (.276-3-35)
LF: Jake Williams (.273-2-38)
CF: Jackie Bradley, Jr., (.259-6-26)
RF: Evan Marzilli (.299-3-30)
DH: Brady Thomas (.305-4-39)

Pitching probables: RHP Will Roberts (11-1, 1.58, 91 K's) vs. RHP Colby Holmes (7-3, 3.78, 70 K's)

South Carolina's bullpen:

RHP John Taylor (6-1, 1.25, 63 K's)
LHP Steven Neff (3-1, 2.45, 29 K's)
RHP Jose Mata (3-0, 1.76, 16 K's)
LHP Tyler Webb (3-1, 3.21, 28 K's)
RHP Matt Price (6-3, 2.13, 68 K's, 18 sv)

UVA took care of Cal the same way they dispatched UC-Irvine: threatening most of the time and then finally stringing the hits together in the later innings.  Danny Hultzen threw 6 1/3 innings with his Sunday-best slider but lousy fastball command, and didn't allow a run; he left with no possibility of a decision because the score was 0-0 at the time.  It took - of all people - Keith Werman to get things going, setting the table with a single to lead off the seventh and driving home a run in the eighth with another base hit.  Jared King followed up three absolutely awful at bats with an eighth-inning triple just over the right fielder's glove and scored on Werman's slap single to left.

The (slightly) bad news: the 0-0 game required Brian O'Connor to stretch Hultzen's arm as long as possible instead of holding back a little, and when he went to the pen it was for Tyler Wilson, who threw 2 1/3 innings in relief before giving way to Branden Kline for the final out.  That means Will Roberts will take the hill on Tuesday instead of Wilson.  Hultzen, of course, is right out.

In terms of starting pitching, Roberts should have the advantage.  (Cue Gamecock fans: he didn't pitch against ess-eee-cee competition though.)  He'll go against right-hander Colby Holmes.  He's likely to pitch deeper into the game than Holmes is; South Carolina sometimes has a quick hook with Holmes.  They yanked him in the fifth inning of their super-regional game against UConn despite only being down 2-1 at the time.  He also got totally bombed out of the Ole Miss game.  Holmes has a tendency to give up the gopherball; of the 26 home runs allowed by the South Carolina pitching staff, 12 are Holmes's responsibility.  Holmes is one of those pitchers who throws three or four pitches but doesn't have consistent command of most of them yet.  There's nothing that our hitters like better than a 91-mph fastball that isn't accompanied by a slider or change that gets over the plate.  (That was Irvine ace Matt Summers's problem.)  Holmes could have the breaking stuff working and have a fair amount of success; if not, he'll be pulled in the third inning and leave behind some tired outfielders and probably a sizable deficit.

However, the gopherball isn't a UVA specialty, and the CWS stadium is a big one, so don't expect anything to go flying out of the park.  It's been playing very homer-unfriendly so far.  And if UVA hitters can't jump on Holmes quickly, South Carolina may well be able to neutralize the UVA advantage on the hill by going to their bullpen early.  The only unavailable pitcher after their game against A&M is the starter, Michael Roth, who wasn't pulled until the eighth inning.  South Carolina will have a full bullpen; UVA will as well, but with Wilson's availability in question, doesn't have a long-relief horse like the Gamecocks' John Taylor.  And closer Matt Price is lights-out and a 6th-round pick.

Roberts will have his hands full with the South Carolina lineup, of course.  Christian Walker was a super-late round pick out of high school two years ago by the Dodgers, but being picked 1477th overall doesn't inspire one to try the professional track, and South Carolina is much the better for it.  Walker has hit 10 home runs this year, driven in 60 runs, and bats .357.  Scott Wingo, the walkoff hero of the A&M game, also bats .350+.  He's an 11th-round pick this year.  But the highest draft pick isn't Price, or Walker (who's only a sophomore), or Wingo - it's 9th hitter Jackie Bradley, picked 40th overall by the Red Sox.  Bradley's had a disappointing season, batting only .259, which is why he's in the 9th slot, but his presence there just reinforces the notion that Roberts won't be able to relax just because he got to the bottom of the order.  Bradley still packs a little pop in his bat and obviously, the major leagues think he's got a pile of talent.

I'd remind you that South Carolina is the defending national champion, but ESPN will probably take care of that for most of the game's duration, so I won't.  One thing that is interesting is that this is the first time in quite a while that they've won their first CWS game.  And of course, this being only UVA's second trip, it's the first time ever for UVA in the winner's bracket, too.  Both teams have been to Omaha before, but still it's the Omaha debut for both pitchers; neither pitched in their respective teams' previous appearances here.  I don't know if Gamecock fans are worried about Colby Holmes's mentality, but with a perfect game under Will Roberts's belt, I'm not worried about his handling of pressure.

What worries me is this: In seven previous games in this tournament so far, we've faced a three-seed five times, a four-seed once, and a two-seed once, and that two-seed had burned up its pitching staff and wasn't a very good two-seed anyway.  This'll be UVA's first tournament test against a regional host, and a national seed at that.  I won't call it luck, I call it the benefit of being the national #1 seed - your part of the bracket is likelier to flame out than the rest of it.  But it's time to play with the big boys now.  Can we get this done against an honest, legitimate title contender, the first such opponent in this tournament run?  UVA will get no respect from Ess-Eee-Cee fans or most pundits - I mean, actual they-could-actually-win-this-tournament respect - until we beat one of their own, someone who's been all the way to the top before.  UVA opened some eyes in 2009 by eliminating Irvine and Ole Miss, but there's a next step to be taken now, and Tuesday is our chance.

game preview: California

Date/Time: Sunday, June 19; 2 PM

TV: ESPN

History against the Bears: 0-0

Last matchup: Never

Last game: UVA 3, UCI 2 (6/13); Cal 6, DBU 2 (6/12)

Last weekend: UVA 2-1 over UC-Irvine; Cal 2-0 over Dallas Baptist

National rankings: this is Omaha, brutha, forget that stuff, just play ball

Blogs of the enemy: California Golden Blogs

Cal's possible lineup:

C: Chadd Krist (.304-2-43)
1B: Devon Rodriguez (.288-5-34)
2B: Tony Renda (.335-3-42)
SS: Marcus Semien (.277-5-35)
3B: Mitch Delfino (.260-4-20)
LF: Austin Booker (.319-1-24)
CF: Darrel Matthews (.275-0-18)
RF: Chad Bunting (.276-7-23)
DH: Vince Bruno (.301-0-13)

Pitching probables: LHP Danny Hultzen (12-3, 1.49, 151 Ks) vs. RHP Erik Johnson (7-4, 2.91, 100 Ks)

Cal's bullpen:

RHP Kevin Miller (6-4, 2.59, 86 Ks)
LHP Kyle Porter (5-0, 1.59, 53 Ks)
RHP Logan Scott (1-1, 2.89, 29 Ks)
RHP Matt Flemer (4-2, 2.08, 36 Ks, 5 sv)

It's Omaha Time.

Let me just get you ready right now for the storylines that'll be beaten over your head during the game on Sunday:

- Cal was ready to drop baseball last fall, but a bunch of donors stepped in and saved the program, and now they're in the College World Series.
- Virginia nearly did the same ten years ago, and now they're in the College World Series as the #1 seed.
- How crazy is it that these two teams are meeting?

Now that we've done ESPN's job for them and gotten that out of the way, let's talk Cal baseball.

The week's big question was whether Cal's lefty starter Justin Jones would be ready to go on Sunday.  Answer: he won't.  That probably means right-hander Erik Johnson, who might be a better pitcher anyway.  Johnson is a big, legit pro prospect, drafted with the 80th overall pick by the White Sox.  He can throw four pitches well, but two consistently (a low-90s fastball and a good slider) and has control issues.  Johnson's issued 54 walks this year (more than one every two innings) which is more than twice the number of walks issued by any UVA pitcher.

UVA should be throwing CyberDanny Hultzen, of course.**  The #2 pick in the draft.  Cal will get some confidence out of having already beaten the #1 pick in the draft - they beat UCLA and Gerrit Cole last month, but it should be noted, the Cal batters scored just once off of Cole and UCLA never scored at all, their hitting being thoroughly miserable.  And they were dominated by Trevor Bauer the next day.  So, have no fear.  As ever, the only thing that can really slow down Danny Hultzen is Danny Hultzen, and even then he pitched six shutout innings against Irvine with his worst stuff of the season.

The Cal lineup is nothing to write home about.  I think Irvine's was probably better.  Cal didn't attract much attention from MLB drafters, although partly that's because their best hitter, Tony Renda, is a sophomore.  Renda leads the team in batting average and total bases and is just shy of the RBI lead, too.  Not much home run power, though.  Cal can spread some of that around the lineup, but no one hitter is a huge danger.  Chad Bunting leads the team with seven, and White Sox draftee Marcus Semien (sixth round) has five, as does Devon Rodriguez.  UVA isn't a home run-hitting team, and still we have John Hicks with eight.

Unlike the other baseball previews this season, this is a one-game shot.  So it comes down to this: Will Danny Hultzen be effective?  If so, we win.  Cal neither strikes out nor walks very much.  They like to get the ball into play.  The Rob Deer Fan Club does not approve.  This is A Good Thing; UVA's fielding percentage is fifth-best in the country, and Danny has a good shot at cruising through some of these innings with fewer than 10 pitches.  One the flip side, Johnson's propensity to walk hitters (if indeed we face Erik Johnson) should be helpful; a big strength of the UVA lineup is making you waste good pitches and then driving your mistakes into the gaps.  Look for UVA to go into full-on get-on-base-however-you-can mode.  I'm hopeful of getting this CWS kicked off on the right foot.

**Some folks see the setup of the tournament, which is a repeat of the last two weeks (a double-elimination four-team "regional" and then a best-two-of-three series, and assume we should use the same pitching strategy.  That is, save Hultzen for the all-important Game 2.  This is incorrect.  The CWS offers a day of rest, or two, between games, meaning if the best happens and we win two in a row, Hultzen can pitch Sunday and then pitch again on Friday.  The rest time in Omaha allows you to shorten up your pen.  Last time, Hultzen started both Game 1 and Game 3 (albeit after throwing just three innings in Game 1) because they were far enough apart, and Sunday starter Andrew Carraway found himself in long relief in both Games 2 and 3.  It may well be possible to get through the "regional" round of the tourney alternating Hultzen and Tyler Wilson, with Will Roberts and Cody Winiarski throwing in relief.  A guy like Will Roberts coming out of the pen?  Nasty.  On the pitching staff, UVA has the best horses in Omaha; it's time to ride.  Shorten the pen, shorten the rest, and win with your best.

series preview: UC-Irvine

Date/Time:

Saturday, 6/11, 1 PM
Sunday, 6/12, 1 PM
Monday, TBA (if necessary)

TV: Saturday/Sunday, ESPNUVA; Monday ESPN2

History vs. the Anteaters: 2-0

Last matchup: UVA 4, UC-Irvine 1; Irvine, CA; 5/31/09 (NCAA Tournament, Irvine Regional)

Last game: UVA 13, ECU 1 (6/5); UC-Irvine 4, UCLA 3 (6/5)

Last weekend: UVA won Charlottesville Regional, 3-0 record; UC-Irvine won Los Angeles Regional, 3-0 record

National rankings: are either old, don't matter any more, or both

Irvine lineup:

C: Ronnie Shaeffer (.271-1-30)
1B: Jordan Fox (.335-0-25)
2B: Tommy Reyes (.282-0-28)
SS: D.J. Crumlich (.293-1-27)
3B: Brian Hernandez (.351-0-31)
LF: Drew Hillman (.336-5-50)
CF: Christian Ramirez (.294-0-32)
RF: Sean Madigan (.288-1-35)
DH: Jordan Leyland (.294-4-42)

Pitching probables:

Saturday: LHP Danny Hultzen (11-3, 1.57, 148 Ks) vs. RHP Matt Summers (11-2, 1.72, 96 Ks)
Sunday: RHP Tyler Wilson (8-0, 2.34, 111 Ks) vs. LHP Matt Whitehouse (4-0, 2.14, 59 Ks)
Monday: RHP Will Roberts (11-1, 1.61, 90 Ks) vs. RHP Crosby Slaught (7-2, 3.97, 47 Ks)

Bullpen:

LHP Jimmy Litchfield (2-1, 2.97, 33 Ks)
RHP Philip Ferragamo (2-0, 2.05, 24 Ks)
RHP Nick Hoover (2-4, 3.48, 23 Ks)
LHP Andy Lines (5-2, 2.60, 26 Ks)
RHP Brian Hernandez (3-2, 3.29, 23 Ks, 12 Sv)

We meet again.  UVA has only ever played UC-Irvine twice in the baseball history of the two schools, but they might've been the most important games in the baseball history of the former.  Prior to those games, UVA had never advanced past the regional stage of the baseball tournament, and national sixth-seed Irvine stood in the way.  Twice.  UVA had played in and even hosted regionals up til then under the guidance of Brian O'Connor, but playing Irvine twice and beating them twice announced to the world that UVA was finally ready to play with the big boys.  (And then showed it wasn't a fluke by beating Ole Miss in the ensuing super-regional.)

Along the way, UVA even made fans of the ESPN announcers, who'd prattled incessantly about "Irvine Baseball" as a style of play - nay, a calling, a way of life - and then when UVA beat them at that game, the announcers conceded that UVA could also play Irvine Baseball.

Admittedly, the two teams have a similar focus in mind when they take the field.  (What irritated UVA fans - besides the incessant talking about only the opposition - was the notion that Irvine had some kind of patent on contact hitting and good defense.)  Irvine has hit even fewer home runs this season than UVA has, so the outfield fans at Davenport won't be taking home many souvenirs this weekend.

Despite the lack of Gerrit Cole in the visitor's dugout, the Saturday pitching matchup is still intriguing, as the Eaters will throw Matt Summers, a fourth-round pick in this week's draft and the highest-chosen Irvine Anteater.  Summers has got the numbers, the Big West pitcher of the year award, and a no-hitter to boot, thrown against Long Beach State the final regular season weekend.  What he's missing is a breaking pitch.  OK, not exactly, but Summers loves his fastball.  A lot.  He's always been a hard thrower, but he's a converted outfielder and just recently figured out how to change velocities and learned a breaking pitch, and his ERA went from the 8s to the 1s in one season.

The Irvine lineup is exactly what you'd expect from a team that plays - ummmm - Irvine Baseball.  Only two home run threats: Drew Hillman and Jordan Leyland (no, not related to Tigers manager Jim) who've hit nine of Irvine's 13 homers.  The lineup hardly even has a top or bottom.  Most of these guys don't go slugging the ball all over the field (a .388 slugging average as a team) and none of the numbers anywhere jump off the page at you, but they're all solid contact hitters who know how to get on base.  Can't relax anywhere in the lineup.  Oh, and there's a deep bullpen.  No more hoping for the opposition to burn up their pitching staff; not gonna happen this weekend.  Strength against strength.

Style of play isn't the only thing that these two teams have in common: there's also the John Olerud Award, handed out to the best two-way player in the country.  Specifically, the semifinalists for said award; both teams have one.  Ours is Guess Who; they have perhaps an even more deserving candidate in Brian Hernandez, who bats .351 as the Irvine starting third baseman and has 12 saves as their closer.

So, two similar teams.  Irvine came out of a tough regional, and two of the five polls even placed them a few notches ahead of UCLA in their final regular season ballots.  There isn't an exploitable weak point on this team like there was on, say, St. John's.  They're no interloper.  That said, Irvine is essentially UVA-lite.  They have a lineup of good contact hitters, yes, but we have a better one.  More slugging and more .300 hitters.  They have some pretty good starting pitching, but, uh, Danny Hultzen.  They have a no-hitter this season.  UVA has a perfect game.  I'd give Irvine the edge in the pen based on depth, but on the other hand, we won't have to substitute our third baseman if we're up 3-2 in the ninth.  And in the ever-popular intangibles department, the Eaters were just 15-11 on the road in the regular season, only played four games outside the state of California (and none east of Spokane or Las Vegas, whichever's further east), and lost all four of them - a sweep at the hands of Gonzaga and a loss to UNLV.  This travel thing is definitely new.  UVA should win this series; if not, we can add another UVA baseball history superlative: biggest disappointment ever.

weekend review, but mostly baseball review

More so than most sports, baseball is a game of mantras, and every coach has one that they drill into their players' heads so hard they'll be muttering it on their deathbeds.  A favorite one tends to boil down to: don't fuck around with two outs.  Boy if there's one thing that drives coaches to distraction it's two-out walks.  In the future if the baseball coaches at ECU, St. John's, or the USNA want to illustrate the dangers of playing with fire after two outs, this weekend is all they'll need.

UVA flat dominated the weekend, and when two outs were recorded against them, they had the opposition right where they wanted 'em.  The beatings only got harder as the weekend advanced: a 6-0 complete-game shutout by Will Roberts over Navy; 10-2 dismantling of St. John's the next day, and then to wrap up the weekend, 13-1 over ECU to leave no doubts about who'd be going to the super-regional.  For the arithmetically challenged and the philosophy majors, that's outscoring the opposition 29-3, and 23 of those 29 runs came with two outs already on the board and that doesn't count 1-out sac flies.

UVA's hitters piled up 41 hits for a .366 batting average on the weekend, and the pitchers allowed three runs and held opposing hitters to .189.  The impressive thing: 42 strikeouts, which means over half the outs earned by UVA pitchers were K's.  That's actually not very efficient - strikeouts tend to use a lot more pitches than groundouts - but it helps explain the only three runs.  It's safe to say that not many teams had a better weekend than UVA did.  (Of course, theoretically nobody had an easier tournament draw, but that's what you earn for being the only team with not even ten losses yet.)  And just for the cherry on top, the win over ECU yesterday was the 52nd of the season, which is a new UVA record.  With Danny Hultzen setting the single-season K record, it was that kind of weekend.

Ah, but as good as the weekend was in Charlottesville - beautiful baseball weather, hitters hitting, pitchers dominating - it was improved even more by the events three time zones and a country away.  UVA was set to take on UCLA in the super-regionals, which would've been interesting because UCLA can't hit the ball off a tee but has two pitchers whose names will be called in the top five picks of the MLB draft tonight.  The Friday afternoon 1-4 seed matchups produced five shutouts, as you'd expect, but one involved the lowly four seed flipping the script and shutting down the one seed.  That was UCLA, courtesy of the San Francisco Dons.  Forced to fight out of the loser's bracket, UCLA ended up losing again on Sunday in a bottom-of-the-ninth rally by UC-Irvine, sending the 3rd-seeded Anteaters to Charlottesville instead of Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer.

Yup, Irvine.  You remember Irvine.  Don't tell me you don't.  Two years ago, Irvine hosted the dumbest regional ever put together by Tim Weiser and his tournament committee, bringing UVA to California to face the tournament's 6 seed (winning the ACC championship was not widely expected to give UVA hosting duties but it was supposed to give us a reasonable travel itinerary) and, before we could even get to Irvine in all their sixth-seeded glory, San Diego State's Stephen Strasburg would bring his triple-digit radar readings to bear against UVA hitters.  Adding insult to insult, the ESPN announcers** spent both UVA-Irvine games prattling on about "Irvine Baseball" which was apparently a Serious Way Of Life or something because the announcers never let the score (which climbed steadily higher in favor of UVA throughout both games) get in the way of the story.  They finally got around to facing the extinction of Irvine Baseball in the ninth inning of the regional championship game by acknowledging that Virginia could play a little Irvine Baseball too.

So Tim Weiser and Irvine Baseball entered the collective consciousness of UVA baseball fans in one glorious weekend, and now it's time for Round 2, this time in the super-regionals and at Davenport Field instead of Anteater Ballpark.  I'm not sure this qualifies as a rivalry per se, but any time you can bring up old storylines and memories (good ones in our case, bad, revengey ones in Irvine's) it brings the spice of one.  We're deprived of Danny Hultzen vs. Gerrit Cole and Tyler Wilson vs. Trevor Bauer, but this should be just as fun.

**The plus side of playing in the deathiest, doomiest regional in modern history was that UVA got the only ESPN cameras of the weekend, or maybe one of only two, which, OK, the announcers grated like knives on a chalkboard, but Watching The Game is always better than Not Watching The Game.  The baseball tournament is slowly but surely emerging from the dark ages, with more ESPN games on TV, and a number of streaming video options too.  The number of regionals you can watch live without having to follow little cones around a stock diamond is up from about one-eighth to one-half, which is Progress.

Anyway, UVA is headed to the super-regionals for the third time in a row (and third time in school history) and hoping for the second CWS trip in school history as well.  It'd be fairly disappointing not to get there, you know, being the tourney's #1 seed and all, but you really have to like the odds.  Friendly stadium and run-of-the-mill decent pitchers instead of major leaguers that haven't quite burned up their college eligibility.  I'll take it.

The rest of the weekend wasn't so bad either....

- On Thursday, Steele Stanwick picked himself up a little Tewaaraton Trophy action.  As a UVA fan that's friggin' awesome.  If it were anyone else I might say "hmm."  What the voters just made abundantly clear is that they absolutely give a shit that you have some postseason success, and not getting to the Final Four is basically disqualifying.  Any questions about that (and they did exist) are dispelled.  UVA has now won the Tewaaraton in every year of the award's existence when UVA also won the national title (and only when we win the national title) - three times now, with Matt Ward and Chris Rotelli as UVA's other winners.  No school has won the men's award more, but Syracuse also has three winners.

- Oh, and speaking of Danny Hultzen, tonight's his big night.  Top five pick in the draft, and if he slips any further it's because of signability or insanity.  (There's a reason most of the teams in the top of the draft are picking up there, and usually it's because they don't always know what they're doing.)  I hope this tournament run lasts a while because I will definitely miss having the best damn pitcher in college baseball, not to mention that filthy disgusting hat.

- This was supposed to be a fairly big junior day weekend for Mike London's recruiting efforts, but half the crew bailed on him.  The weekend earned a commitment from defensive end Max Valles, so it wasn't a total loss, but frankly it was otherwise a huge dud.  Everyone had an excuse not to be there.  In the past I've been waving the optimism flag but with so many cancellations on what should've been one of the bigger weekends of the summer, it's hard not to look at the recruiting board and see defensive ends coming out of our ears and not much else.

Speaking of which, that's updated now.  Because there's not much motion and because of the Cavalier of the Year profiles starting tomorrow, the board doesn't get its own post this week, but the commitment means it has to get some kind of attention.  So, for posterity's sake:

- Added DE Max Valles to orange.

- Removed QB Tyler O'Connor from yellow.  He dropped everyone but Michigan State and Northwestern.  Big Ten all the way, I guess.  I'd say it's maybe 50/50 we land a QB this year, at best, but it's not a huge need.  Get one next year and we're just fine.

charlottesville regional preview

Tomorrow it's fer reals.  The lacrosse team having achieved Mission Accomplished, it's now the baseball team's turn to take a run at a national title.  For the second year in a row, UVA will host a regional of their very own at Davenport Field as the regional 1 seed, and being nationally seeded (the top national seed, in fact) is in line to host a super-regional if they advance.

East Carolina, St. John's, and Navy are the teams trekking to Charlottesville for regional play; UVA will play Navy on Friday at 1 PM and the other two will play at 6.  The format for the weekend is double elimination, and all games will luckily be on quasi-TV with video streaming at NCAA.com.  That's not all that cool but it's better than nothing, which is what you get with 11 or 12 of the 16 regionals.

Here's what you get when these teams come to town:

Navy Midshipmen

Starters:

C - Jeff Bland (.264-3-33)
1B - Kash Manzelli (.196-0-6)
2B - Nick Driscoll (.272-2-29)
SS - Dylan Wheeler (.194-0-11)
3B - Greg Dupell (.332-7-35)
LF - Brandon Beans (.263-0-21)
CF - Alex Azor (.332-0-33)
RF - Taylor Cato (.342-0-14)
DH - Dave Milanes (.304-3-48)

SP - Ben Nelson (6-5, 4.64)
SP - Sam Long (5-5, 4.34)
SP - Johnny Schoberl (5-1, 4.73)

RP - Wes Olson (7-1, 2.57)
RP - Preston Gainey (2-0, 2.40)
RP - Jordan Heller (1-3, 6.57)
CL - Joel Rinehart (2-2, 1.88)

Record: 33-23, 12-8
RPI rank: 189

Common opponents:

Maryland: UVA 3-0 (14-1, 4-2, 4-2), Navy 0-1 (3-8)
Georgetown: UVA 1-0 (4-0); Navy 1-1 (9-2, 2-17)
Towson: UVA 2-0 (6-0, 5-0); Navy tied 8-8

Your Patriot League champ is the mighty USNA, and their reward is this trip just up the road to Charlottesville.  No, it doesn't make Navy the worst seed in the tournament - travel rather than seeding dictates where the hapless regional 4 seeds go - but they're close.

UVA will pitch Will Roberts tomorrow against Navy, and the Middies counter with right-hander Ben Nelson.  Nelson is a three-pitch guy who's going to try and get his change-up working on Friday on the theory that UVA hasn't seen much of that in the ACC.  (Um, ok.)

For the most part, Navy's lineup is way crappier than anything the ACC has ever presented our pitchers.  This is basically a weekday game.  There are decent hitters in the middle but Navy probably won't be able to touch Roberts with anything after the #5 hitter.  Greg Dupell is the only threat to hit one over the longish Davenport fences, so UVA will see a very poor man's version of itself as Navy will try to advance its runners via solid baserunning and the old-fashioned chess game rather than hacking their way around the bases.  As best I can tell, some of the troubles at the plate come from trading hitting for fielding with some midseason position switches.  Giving Patriot League ROY Taylor Cato more playing time as the season progressed shored up the hitting, but they may choose to put speed on the bases and a better glove in the field by playing junior Andrew Hahn over Cato.

Usual caveats about anything-can-happen aside, this is not a troublesome matchup.  Being the 1 seed gives you the luxury of throwing your #3 pitcher and having him still be better than the opponent's ace.  That's what's going on here, allowing Danny Hultzen to be saved for the all-important second game.

St. John's Red Storm

Starters:

C - Joe Witkowski (.255-0-22)
1B - Paul Karmas (.319-5-40)
2B - Matt Weissinger (.274-6-42)
SS - Joe Panik (.402-9-56)
3B - Pat Talbut (.279-1-9)
LF - Jeremy Baltz (.312-6-58)
CF - Jimmy Brennan (.281-3-19)
RF - Kevin Grove (.325-4-19)
DH - Robert Case (.264-0-12)

SP - Kyle Hansen (8-6, 2.70)
SP - Sean Hagan (6-2, 4.55)
SP - Kevin Kilpatrick (4-3, 4.44)
SP - Brendan Lobban (6-2, 4.04)

RP - Stephen Rivera (4-2, 2.68)
RP - Eddie Medina (3-1, 3.73)
CL - Matt Carasiti (2-2, 2.52)

Record: 35-20, 18-8
RPI rank: 53

Common opponents:

Georgia Tech: UVA 2-1 (6-2, 12-9, 8-10); SJU 1-2 (0-13, 0-5, 13-3)
North Carolina: UVA 1-3 (0-6, 1-2, 2-3, 3-2); SJU 0-1 (1-8)
Boston College: UVA 2-1 (17-0, 4-5, 4-0); SJU 1-0 (5-4)
Georgetown: UVA 1-0 (4-0); SJU 3-0 (7-3, 25-7, 12-2)

When last we met, last year right at this time, St. John's was giving UVA fits.  UVA jumped out to a 5-2 lead in what would have been the regional's final game, but couldn't hold on to it, and Kevin Kilpatrick pitched 5 1/3 absolutely baffling innings in relief.  UVA won the next day, but that wasn't easy, either.

The Storm aren't Big East champs, but the committee thinks well enough of the Big East to give them three bids to the tourney, so second-place St. John's - which did make it to the championship game before losing to surprise champ Seton Hall - is in Charlottesville, probably as one of the last at-large teams chosen.

Last year the story was that they could hit but only had one decent pitching arm.  (At least, going in. They almost used those not-very-good arms to pull off a colossal upset.)  It's about the same this year, but with a little more bullpen added in.  Jeremy Baltz had some of the gaudiest numbers in the country last year and smacked four more homers in the regional; he's a little down this year but still leads his team in RBIs.  The real deal, though, is Golden Spikes semifinalist Joe Panik, one of 19 .400 hitters in the country.

St. John's is going with Sean Hagan in their Friday game against East Carolina, meaning that 1) they subscribe to the same theory I do, which is that the Saturday game is the most important and your best pitcher should pitch it, and 2) we'll probably see Kyle Hansen on Saturday if St. John's is the opponent.  Hansen is a big frickin' dude at 6-foot-8, and he's the only pitcher on the roster who's a major threat to strike out the side.  SJU will try to wring a lot of innings out of their starters because there are only three reliable pitchers in the bullpen.  If they have to use Johnny Wholestaff in a game it could get ugly.

This might be the matchup to hope for, if only because Joe Panik vs. Danny Hultzen would be the best possible pitcher-batter duel of the weekend.  The new bats sapped SJU of a lot of their power, but it's still a dangerous-hitting lineup.

East Carolina Pirates

Starters:

C - Zach Wright (.278-13-39)
1B - John Wooten (.284-1-27)
2B - Mike Ussery (.282-0-17)
SS - Jack Reinheimer (.323-0-21)
3B - Corey Thompson (.330-5-45)
LF - Ben Fultz (.301-4-26)
CF- Trent Whitehead (.332-4-29)
RF - Philip Clark (.329-3-27)
DH - Chase McDonald (.302-3-26)

SP - Seth Maness (9-3, 1.88)
SP - Mike Wright (6-3, 2.84)
SP - Kevin Brandt (7-3, 2.26)

RP - Brad Mincey (5-4, 1.55)
RP - Joseph Hughes (0-0, 3.32)
CL - Seth Simmons (6-2, 2.56)

Record: 39-19, 14-10
RPI rank: #26

Common opponents:

NC State: UVA 2-1 (2-6, 3-1, 7-6); ECU 0-1 (2-4)
North Carolina: UVA 1-3 (0-6, 1-2, 2-3, 3-2); ECU 0-2 (3-5, 4-5)
Wake Forest: UVA 1-0 (13-1); ECU 1-0 (9-0)

Speaking of familiar opponents.  UVA is 5-1 against ECU in the past two seasons, sweeping last year's series in Greenville and then taking 2 of 3 this year.  The Pirates were the 3rd seed in the C-USA tournament, and their conference ultimately produced four tourney bids.

This is a strong team with a well-rounded lineup, and especially a good, well-rounded group of starting pitchers.  St. John's is taking a little bit of a risk, since they'll be outmatched on the mound with Mike Wright going for the Pirates on Friday.  This means that, again, should UVA face ECU on Saturday, we'll get their ace, in this case, Seth Maness.

However, our pitchers were able to keep ECU well in check in the early-season series.  A Hultzen-Maness matchup would be the second of the year; Hultzen blew Maness away in the first, striking out 15 ECU batters in seven innings.  Maness only lasted 3 1/3 and gave up nine runs.  By throwing Wright on Friday, they're using the one pitcher who truly shut down UVA's batters - one of only nine to earn a win against the Hoos.  The difference in that game was one bad inning by Cody Winiarski, who was otherwise solid.  If UVA sees ECU on Saturday, it'll be Hultzen, but Winiarski might be the guy on Monday if necessary.

Don't look for any weak spots in the Pirate lineup.  The guy with the lowest average is also the guy with 13 home runs.  Zach Wright is kind of a classic free-swinger, with nearly as many strikeouts as hits, but don't let him get a hold of one.  This is a lineup without a definite stand-out hitter, but partly that's because there are no easy outs at all and several players who'd be stars elsewhere.

Prediction for the weekend:

Well, for starters, we'd better beat Navy.  That's a prediction.  I think ECU will beat St. John's in the nightcap, giving us the Hultzen-Maness rematch.  And you never feel like we'll lose with RoboDanny on the mound.  If I were St. John's in that situation, I'd hold Kyle Hansen back one more day and hope my 3rd pitcher can beat Navy, and then with Hansen on the mound on Sunday against ECU, it turns into a tossup.  If all goes well UVA will await that game's winner with Tyler Wilson against whoever they can scrape.

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One of the happy problems about winning a national title is the general inadequacy of anything you write about it.  It's a terrifically awesome thing, but words are not terrifically awesome things except in the hands of the true-greats, so there's a disconnect.  (Sure, you can get on a message board and write WAHOOWA!!!!!!  CHAMPIONS WOOO!!! FHOGSIRFGSSDOYVCXEHG!!!!! but does that do anything for your desire to chug a celebratory pitcher of beer?)

Anyway, I thought this did a very nice job of bridging the gap a little.  It's part sap and part advertising executive, but don't worry it's not a diamond ad.  It's a great way to hold up UVA (specifically, it's outstanding lacrosse team) as examples worth following.  The ultimate positive story to erase all the bad ones of the past 12+ months.

acc tournament semi-preview

UVA baseball didn't exactly roll into the ACC tournament on a wave of momentum.  They do happen to be the #1 seed, and if you like that, thank (ick) the Hokies for taking one of three from Georgia Tech.  UVA did itself no favors in a horrendously weak hitting exposition against the Heels last weekend, getting themselves....swept.  Never thought I'd say that as long as Danny Hultzen was still on the team.

Not the end of the world, though.  The pitching is still as good as it ever was.  Carolina didn't get much hitting in, either, a five-run inning against Cody Winiarski and Kyle Crockett last Thursday being the scariest thing that happened all weekend.  As long as you have pitching, you're in every game.  So the ACC tournament pods shook out like so:

1. Virginia
4. North Carolina
5. Miami
8. Wake Forest

2. Florida State
3. Georgia Tech
6. Clemson
7. NC State

Now for the good news: the Hoos got the tourney off on the right foot.  Simply winning would've been cool and all, but the ACC tourney has a mercy rule (there's other games going on, chop chop, get a move on) and the Hoos took advantage.  Wake Forest, whom UVA hasn't seen on the diamond for a couple years, got smacked to the tune of 13-1 in just seven innings.  And really, six for the bats, because UVA was the home team.  So the bats are back.  Tyler Wilson got the start and pitched a gem, naturally.  Struck out 12 in 6.1 innings.  Nasty as ever.

The other result of the day - you'll like this, too, promise - was Clemson blanking Georgia Tech, 9-0.  Losing the first game of the tourney means you need to win your next two games and hope the team that just beat you wins neither of theirs.  So GT has a major uphill climb to win their side of the pool.

Friday, UVA plays Miami, and throws Will Roberts against right-hander Eric Whaley.  Last time against the Canes, Roberts gave up three hits to Miami in seven innings, allowed two runs, one earned, and struck out five.  Whaley was just as strong, with four hits, two runs, none earned, and five strikeouts in six innings on Saturday.  That was right after the exam break so hopefully that's why the bats were like that.  They always are.  This is the game that makes me most nervous; Roberts is a solid pitcher but obviously he's more hittable than the guy that might just be the #1 overall pick in the draft.

The final game of pool play in the tournament is the UNC game on Saturday at 7 PM; RoboDanny pitches against UNC's Kent Emanuel.  This was the same matchup as last Friday.  Emanuel is a lefty, same as Danny, and he held UVA to one lousy run in six innings.  Again, hopefully lingering exam break cobwebs.

The championship game, which hopefully UVA will be in, will be Sunday.  If we get that far, expect Cody Winiarski to start.  Unless a situation arises in which a CG appearance is clinched before Saturday's game, which can happen if UVA beats Miami and UNC loses both their first games, then you'll probably see Cody go on Saturday and Danny held back for the championship.

I'd be remiss, too, if I failed to mention all the Hoos on the all-ACC squads: John Hicks, Steven Proscia, David Coleman, Danny Hultzen, and Branden Kline on the first team and John Barr and Tyler Wilson on the second.  CyberDanny is the pitcher of the year, obviously, and Brian O'Connor is the COY, both for the second year in a row.

Programming note: Tomorrow I preview for you the lacrosse game against Denver, and then I'm off until either Monday or Tuesday.  Happy start of summer, and try not to get schwacked by a tornado.  They seem to be all over.  No tornadoes here, but the manhole on my street outside got blown out of its socket somehow by all the water raging through the sewer system and took a huge chunk of the street with it.  Never seen that before.

series preview: North Carolina

Date/Time: Thu.-Sat., May 19-21; 7:00, 7:00, 2:00

TV: None unless you want to shell out for the UNC video production

History against the Heels: 92-167-4

Last matchup: UVA series win, 3-0 (3-2, 5-1, 5-3), Charlottesville; 5/15-5/16, 2010

Last game: UVA 5, Miami 4 (5/15); UNC 7, App. St. 2 (5/17)

Last weekend: UVA 2-1 series win over Miami (2-6, 3-2, 5-4); UNC 1-2 series loss to GT (3-2, 8-9, 0-3)

National rankings:

Baseball America: UVA #1; UNC #17
Collegiate Baseball: UVA #1; UNC #16
NCBWA: UVA #1; UNC #14
Perfect Game: UVA #1; UNC #15
Coaches: UVA #1; UNC #13
Composite: UVA #1; UNC #14

RPI: UVA #2; UNC #3

Opposing blogs: It's Carolina, so baseball is something that other teams play during the basketball offseason.  Seriously.

UVA's established itself (at a pretty good time to do so) as the king of the rankings; for the first time this season the Hoos are #1 in all five polls.  Such is the power of Virginia baseball that Miami actually moved up in some polls as a reward for not getting swept last weekend.

This week, another test for UVA: a road trip to Chapel Hill.  UNC is similar to Miami in the sense of having a good pitching staff and only fair hitting.  Better pitching, in fact, but slightly worse hitting, and very solid fielding.  The result is a team that's surprisingly (to me) third in the RPI.  Maybe it's that series sweep over 37-10 Stony Brook.

UNC's staff is one you'd feel very confident going into a weekend series with; the rotation is strong and the bullpen is stronger.  Their pitching staff is second in the nation in strikeouts (guess who's first?? yup, very interesting matchup this weekend) and the leader there is Patrick Johnson, who'll pitch tonight against Cody Winiarski.  Johnson does it with command and control; he's not overpowering, which could be a plus for UVA and their patient ways at the plate.  Bottom line for UVA batters, though, is that they're facing a pitching staff very much like their own: going for strikeouts and not working the corners hoping for a generous umpire.

Carolina's got a few dangerous hitters - they're no murderer's row but there are a couple guys worth watching out for - but the real star of the team has been a freshman: third baseman Colin Moran, who's hitting .349 with nine home runs.  Yes, that's a big number in the brave new world of bats that go clank instead of ping.  He and shortstop Levi Michael lead the team in RBIs, and Moran has 63 to Michael's 45 so it's not real close.

I think the Heels' #3 RPI overrates them quite a bit.  How has UNC fared in the ACC this season?  A little bit underwhelmingly.  They're 9-0 against the real dregs (Duke, VT, and Maryland) but inexplicably lost their series with Wake Forest and even more inexplicably got swept by NC State.

The pitching rotation is a little bit different this weekend.  UNC hasn't changed anything, but it's Brian O'Connor's custom to shake things up and realign his rotation for the postseason; accordingly, Tyler Wilson is off this weekend with Winiarski starting tonight, Danny tomorrow, and Will Roberts on Saturday.  All it takes is one win this weekend or one GT loss and the #1 seed in the ACC tourney is ours; BOC is anticipating needing pitchers Wednesday (probably Winiarski), Thursday (Wilson), Saturday (Danny himself), and then hopefully Sunday (Roberts or Johnny Wholestaff.)  That's my guess at the rotation next weekend.  That Thursday game, assuming we're the 1 seed, will be against the 5 seed: probably UNC.  See the logic of keeping Wilson back this weekend?

Honestly, this weekend UVA has nothing to prove.  A series win would be a reaffirmation of awesomeness - series wins at GT and UNC and a sweep at Clemson, that'd be a record to be reckoned with - but barring the Rapture or some kind of catastrophe in the next couple weeks, UVA will be hosting a regional and getting first dibs on a super-regional, too.  That won't change if we have the misfortune of going 1-2.

Rest of the ACC:

NC State at Boston College
Wake Forest at Maryland: BC and Maryland are toast; the two road teams here will be vying for placement in the 2-3-6-7 pool in the ACC tourney.  NC State won the series against Wake, and so has the tiebreaker - both are 12-15.
Clemson at Florida State: A single win will give FSU the Atlantic Division and the #2 seed.  Clemson can win it if they sweep.
Duke at Miami: Good chance for Miami to get some separation from UNC in the standings, but it matters little since it'll probably be for the 4th seed over the 5th.
Georgia Tech at Virginia Tech: GT must sweep and hope for a UNC sweep in order to win the division.  Otherwise they'll almost definitely be the 3rd seed, having already beaten Miami and UNC in their series.

Probable ACC finish:

1. Virginia
2. Florida State
3. Georgia Tech
4. Miami
5. North Carolina
6. Clemson
7. NC State
8. Wake Forest

Remember, the teams are sorted into 1-4-5-8 and 2-3-6-7 pools, so whatever happens this weekend, expect to have to do it again the next.  That's why BOC isn't letting UNC get a look at Tyler Wilson.

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Bonus: Good news is afoot on the basketball recruiting trail.

- First, as predicted, Mike Tobey is starting to see a serious upward kick in his rankings.  Rivals gave him a fourth star and lists him now as the #100 prospect in the country, giving UVA two of the top 100 for 2012 along with Evan Nolte.  24/7 also puts him in their own top 100.  Time to be legitimately excited for a true center with major talents.  If Tobey pans out that way he could be the first real scoring center since, I dunno, Ralph?

- And two of the top 100 might be just the beginning; last night, rumors went 'splodey all over the tubes about Justin Anderson - a five-star to Rivals, top-25 player to just about everyone, and holding "god given off the charts athletic ability" according to ESPN.  By any measure, precisely the kind of player you always have room for on your roster.  Anderson is a Boo Williams player from Virginia and technically a Maryland commit at the moment; the coaching change and apparent loss of his lead recruiter there are causing him to have second thoughts.  The rumor mill is in full swing in the way that the rumor mill does, with affirmations and denials of everything and I'm not gonna even get into all that because I don't really do that.  Here's the bottom-line point: keep your eyes open for the next couple days because the possibility exists that the 2012 hoops class, which is already starting to look mighty awesome, could look twice as awesome by the end of the weekend.

weekend review

I like to get the bad stuff out of the way early, which means lacrosse goes first today.  Want to know what's so thoroughly frustrating about this team?  Besides the brainfartitude, there are two huge, gaping flaws in the makeup of this team that prevent it from reaching its potential, which is frankly enormous.

Flaw #1: the obvious inability to win a faceoff.  This frustrates me to no end, not least because I'm about to harp on the problems at the faceoff X after a game in which UVA's faceoff men won 15 of 26 for 57%.  That's not half bad.  It's pretty good.  But you know what makes my head explode?  I've been thinking for a while that Ryan Benincasa should take the majority of the faceoffs, Garrett Ince and Brian McDermott should come in only rarely, if ever, and Chris LaPierre should be the second guy for a change of pace every so often  And then Benincasa wins zero of five against Duke and Ince and McDermott combine for 71%.  I've mentioned before that I think the faceoff problems are basically coaching problems because of the inordinate amount of faceoff violations called on our team, and I think the total lack of consistency also points to coaching.

Flaw #2 is that there is but one player on the offensive side of the field - Steele Stanwick - who can make his teammates better.  And he sat out to rest his foot on Saturday.  For my own sanity I'll just assume that Coach Starsia did that because this game didn't matter half of what the next one did and he wanted that ace in the hole he could throw in next week to change the game around....and not because Stanwick's injury got worse somehow.  I hope to hell not.

This is partly why I have that nagging feeling that the end-of-career fade is beginning for Starsia.  For the last decade UVA has had a star attackman that gathers assists nearly as fast as he gathers goals.  Right now that's Stanwick.  In the past it's been Danny Glading, or Ben Rubeor, or Matt Ward, or whatever.  They score and they help their teammates score.  When Stanwick leaves after next season, who'll that be?  Stanwick's talent was immediately evident as a freshman.  You can always tell who the heir apparent is.  Not this time.  It's not Matt White or Rob Emery; the former has disappointed this year and the latter looks like a nice complementary player along the lines of Colin Briggs.  I dunno, maybe I'm overreacting and the reason nobody's really emerged is because of so many upperclassmen in the lineup, but I doubt it; Stanwick and even Chris Bocklet, not to mention the players of the past, played their way in and made themselves indispensible.

But I digress.  Two major flaws in this team and we still only lose to Duke and Syracuse by two goals.  The talent is there to blow the competition out of the water.  But there are some missing elements.  It's like a Corvette with four-cylinder engine.

It doesn't help that we drive it with the parking brake on and the gas cap hanging off.  The silly mistakes are still there.  They weren't as obvious as against UNC, but there they were.  Example: Shamel Bratton jogging down the field after receiving a nice outlet pass following a turnover and setting up the offense.  Fine, except....you're Shamel Bratton and nobody's covering you!  Jog?  Shamel should've been sprinting downfield and ripping a shot at a corner of the net.  If it misses, fine....then go set up the offense.  Instead, Shamel jogged across midfield and the team proceeded to huck the ball around the box for thirty seconds before lobbing a beach ball at Duke's net, which of course was saved.  I'm not questioning Shamel's effort here, I'm questioning the recognition.  The Brattons are the kings of "argh don't do th.....YES!"  Would've been the time for it.

So as a punishment for losing to Duke like we always do, we get to play Duke again on Friday.  Let's hope Steele Stanwick is the difference.  I'm not brimming with optimism here.

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Fortunately, there's a cure for that: the baseball team.  As punishment for beating our lacrosse team on Saturday, the baseball team beat Duke twice on Sunday - first by ripping their hearts out when they thought they had a real chance to steal a win, and then by stomping on it to the tune of 18-4 in the second game.

Friday was easy, of course, at least after the first three innings.  Danny Hultzen served up seven innings of Danny freakin' Hultzen, although the early going was a little rocky while the UVA hitters tried to figure out how to get to Duke's soft-tossing lefty Dillon Haviland.  Eventually they figured that out and before you knew it, it was 10-0, which is how the game ended.  Shutout woo.

Sunday's game 1 was quite the pitchers' duel.  UVA scratched out two runs against Dennis O'Grady and Duke did the same on a two-run double off of closer Kline, in relief of Tyler Wilson and his disgustingly efficient outing.  Wilson took the blame for the runs but it wasn't fair the way he was pitching.  Duke then  brought scheduled third game starter Marcus Stroman in to finish it up.

Not a bad move, by the way.  A few observers criticized the move but I liked it.  For Duke, I mean.  With Duke's miserable pitching staff you don't look for two of three against UVA.  You look to steal one where you can get it, and so they went all-in and brought Stroman in, figuring that because he's a starter and the best pitcher they have, he could work some long innings in what you had to assumed would be an extra-inning game, and outlast UVA's bullpen while Duke worked on manufacturing a run.  Stroman throws 95 and has the control of a kamikaze pilot.  He plunked the first two batters he faced, which appeared to draw a warning from the home-plate ump - "one more of those and you're gone" is my bet, because UVA's third batter walked on four straight pitches that were so far outside they'd have been behind a hitter in the other batter's box.  Bases loaded, none out, and UVA managed to score not even once.  Then they did the same thing in the 10th.  And then because baseball is a screwed-up game, two straight two-out base hits plated the winning run in the 11th.

Having run out of pitchers who can get hitters out, and having forgotten how to field fly balls, Duke fell apart in the third game and UVA won by 14.  I can't decide which pop-up I enjoyed more: the one that landed about five yards behind second base because three Duke fielders collided on their way to it, or the one that landed about five feet in front of home plate because the Duke pitcher lost it in the wind.  In the nine-run third, two of the three outs Duke recorded were sacrifice bunts.  After that inning UVA had just as many hits as Duke and nine more runs.

If you paid attention to the starting rotation, you noticed Will Roberts got his ACC shot on Sunday, and you probably also noticed it didn't go too great.  Roberts settled down some, but all in all gave up eight hits in five innings.  But he walked nobody, which is the kind of thing that makes pitching coaches happy.  For the same reason Cody Winiarski didn't get yanked after a couple tough outings here and there (that being: Brian O'Connor doesn't have a knee-jerk reaction to things) Roberts will almost certainly start next Sunday as well, and Cody will be the weekday guy for now.  Both will be absolutely critical come the postseason.

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Newsy bits:

- Ausar Walcott is back on the football team, about a week after his charges were dropped.  Because I trust London on matters of discipline, it seems to be a good indication that Walcott in fact was less involved than his teammates in the Great Harrisonburg Party Invasion.  But he's now buried at defensive end.  I don't even want to guess at why, but playing time there is in far shorter supply than it is at linebacker.  The defense is still very much a work in progress and keeping track of the shuffles is sufficient to drive a man crazy, so I'm not going to read much past that into the move for now.

- Speaking of legal matters, the George Huguely murder trial will begin next February.  Surprised at the length of time?  Don't be.  It is the way of the court system.

- When Mike Tobey committed to UVA in January, I thought he looked like a player who'd start attracting a lot more attention as time went on.  Remember, he was supposed to reclassify to 2013 and then changed his mind, and I really think Tony Bennett is a big part of the reason why he changed his mind.  Bennett didn't want another two years to go by for people to get a look at what Tobey could do.  This is why.  Besides Tobey, the other interesting name on that list is 2013 recruit Anthony Barber, who UVA is recruiting pretty hard.  Remember that name because he's a possible answer to the point guard question.  I want him at UVA just because his nickname is Big Cat, which is the kind of old-old-school Harlem Globetrotter nickname they don't even make any more.

- Speaking of bright futures in basketball, Joe Lunardi's way too early bracketology for 2012 has UVA sliding into the ill-conceived at-large play-in round.  (Look, I don't care what the NCAA calls those Dayton games: UAB and USC didn't actually make the tourney this year.)  Lunardi's probably about right in what our expectations should be for the season.  The ACC will be much better, especially if Jordan Williams and Reggie Jackson and Harrison Barnes and whoever else stay in college, and our highly-improved team might not beat it's 7-9 mark from this season but 7-9 will look a hell of a lot better.  Especially if having Mike Scott back with all these freshmen turned sophomores and a functional Assane Sene and a redshirted James Johnson and everything else means we don't screw the pooch against the Seattles and Iowa States of the world.

- Lastly, you remember how there used to be highlight videos around these parts?  There haven't been this year because of a change in my living, and therefore TV, status.  But I think I've got that covered now.  The solution to AT&T's fascist unwillingness to let you download your recordings from DVR to computer arrived on a big brown truck today.  It's hopefully only a matter of time before videos are firing again.

weekend review

Thank everything for Steele Stanwick and a slippery Klockner field, or this wouldn't be a very fun weekend review in the lacrosse section. The good news in that department: An 11-10 win in which UVA significantly outplayed UNC for long stretches. The bad: Dipshit brainfarts that put the game severely in jeopardy.

Nobody was immune. Adam Ghitelman's decision to heave the ball upfield with six seconds on the clock in the third quarter led to one Carolina goal four seconds later. Rhamel Bratton tried the slick, low-percentage pass toward the net (and copious defenders) when all that was required was to run around the field for three minutes. Chris LaPierre froze in the face of a double team, which naturally dislodged the ball a split second later. All of these led to goals and heightened blood pressure.

The other thing that kept leading to goals was the defense's decision to defend everyone but the ballcarrier in transition. This is probably brain-damaged coaching rather than brain-damaged playing. Yes, I get that we don't want the ball to be passed to one of UNC's actual stars, but once the guy with the ball gets within eight yards, does it matter if it's Billy Bitter or Billy the Clown? They're going to score from that range, and it's not helpful to let them get there.

That said, transition defense was a major struggle but settled defense, amazingly, was not. My first thought was that the defense had improved just enough to allow Ghitelman to make the saves and look like the goalie he really can be. Later I realized that was wrong: the defense improved a ton. It turned Carolina's offense into our own offense at its most frustrating: ball gets passed around the perimeter until it's turned over or shot harmlessly into the goalie's stick. Credit the switch to the zone, a timely adjustment that was probably forced upon the coaches as much as anything by Matt Lovejoy's season-ending (OH GREAT) surgery. UNC clearly didn't expect that.

Overall a pleasant surprise that shouldn't have been a surprise at all (a reminder that this can still be a dominant team, even against quality opponents, when it wants to be) pockmarked by some monumental insanity. Encouraging; dumb mistakes are more easily fixed than the entire system.

It sets up the Duke game next week for an interesting scenario: because of how the tiebreakers work, UVA is either going to be the #1 seed or the #4 seed in the ACC tournament. Not that it ever matters, but that's the way it breaks this year.

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Just to get this part out of the way: the baseball team lost a game. OH NO. We being UVA fans, no doubt by now the meltdown is well underway. (checking to see.) (not finding anything.) (doublechecking.) (still no.) Huh, OK, so, baseball fans are a patient bunch, or more patient than basketball fans anyway. It helps that that was only the third loss in 34 games and that a series win on the road against a top-ten team that's probably second-best in the conference is a good thing, not a bad thing. And you'd expect this patience from a group of people who enjoy a game in which they have to sometimes wait for the pitcher to get done scratching his ass and horking loogies on the ball ground before he decides he's ready to deliver again. Gives us time to get another beer.

Anyway, even then it's not entirely rainbows. All three losses have been on Sundays, which means Sunday starter Cody Winiarski is in for some scrutiny, especially after a game that saw his ERA jump up nine-tenths of a point. Every time he struggles and every gem that Will Roberts pitches on Tuesdays increases the call for Roberts to be moved to the weekend rotation. Never mind that Winiarski completely shut down both Poly and Maryland; a bad outing against the team with the seventh-best batting average and ninth-best slugging percentage in the country is enough to bring the doubters out of the woodwork. Explaining to people that George Washington bats .254 as a team and is 245th in the country and Georgia Tech bats .330 and is seventh never seems to have any effect; there's still a crowd that wants to see Roberts "get his chance," as if pitching on Tuesdays isn't a chance and as if that means he'll be forgotten about come the postseason and further as if he and Cody and the rest of the pitching staff hadn't been pitching side by side all offseason under the scrutiny of the coaches. RRGGH. Roberts is pitching wonderfully but Winiarski isn't pitching badly.

Anyway. Georgia Tech. Killed 'em. Danny Hultzen was lights the hell out again, allowing one earned run and one walk and striking out 12 on Friday. The bats came alive late, and Danny had his 7th win of the season. The lineup continued to hammer GT pitching for the rest of the weekend, earning a 12-9 win on Saturday and taking a 10-8 loss on Sunday. Even with the loss and a few extra runs for GT hitting, you are directed to be ecstatic about this: GT's starters are not chumps - they are the opposite of chumps - and our bats chased Mark Pope from what had been a pitchers' duel til the 7th, beat Jed Bradley into submission, and rained hits on Buck Farmer, too.

So: 31-3. Two one-run losses and a two-run loss, up against more than a five-run average margin in our wins. This team has never been out of a game. They're loose, enjoying themselves. They've got that swagger, without swaggering. The last time we saw a UVA team rolling like this was probably during the soccer team's run to the national title (not to put any pressure on.) But soccer is the kind of game where any old fluke at any time can explode all your work up to that point. Baseball can be fluky too but you know you're gonna get your nine hacks, every time, and there's something reassuring about that. There's also something reassuring about Danny Hultzen being on your team. Don't forget that.

27

Dave Matthews once sang that "two's a perfect number." I didn't agree then and I don't now; two doesn't even get you out of the top of the first. Ask Maryland what you can do with those two outs. Perfection requires twenty-seven. (And in the rarest of instances, twenty-eight.)

A perfect game always brings its own numbers with it. Baseball's numerically oriented like that. Will Roberts's perfection is no different. Like "one," as in the first perfect game ever thrown by a UVA pitcher. Or eight, the eighth nine-inning perfect game in NCAA history, or if you prefer, the number of shutouts now thrown by UVA pitchers this year, a previously unheard of statistic made possible by a combination of new, less bouncy bats and having cyborgs for pitchers. This perfect game happened to come with a special round number of its own: 2000, the number of wins in UVA history.

Still, it all comes back to 27. Baseball is the best sport partly because the numbers always tell the story. 27 up, 27 down means the same thing, every time. You don't get that in things like football or basketball, sports that are less binary, less digital, more flowing and analog. There's no equivalent achievement. You can score 50 points in basketball but there's nothing necessarily perfect about that. You can run for so many yards in a football game but there's nothing necessarily perfect about it. You still get tackled every time. But 27 is 27. 27 batters at the plate, and not one of them succeeded in the fundamental mission of baseball. There's something sublime about that.

Roberts helped himself along gorgeously. In a strange way it's perversely unfair that the back-slapping and hubbub over the perfect game overshadows a pitching performance that was - incredible as it sounds - even better than the phrase "perfect game" implies. Of the 27 batters, Roberts struck out 10, leaving just 17 chances for his fielders to screw up. And of those 17, 14 of them were putouts by the first baseman John Hicks; that is to say, ground balls. Keith Werman handled seven of them at second base (including the final out), the ideal location for a grounder. The baseball gods demand at least one lucky element to a perfect game, and Roberts got his when a hard ground bounced square off his shin and right in front of him for the easy toss to first. Roberts only saw three balls go into the air, and two of them fell into Werman's glove at second. With 10 strikeouts, 14 grounders, and two popups to second, that leaves just one ball for the outfield. (That flyout was hit by the same guy who rocketed the grounder off Roberts's leg.) Will Roberts did not stumble and luck his way into a perfect game.

Stuff:

- Werman's role in this should not go overlooked. The kid's got major glove chops. Werman's hitting a measly .213 and the lineup could be improved by putting Stephen Bruno (when he returns from what's become a succession of injuries) back at short and shuffling Chris Taylor to second, but there's a reason O'Connor doesn't do that and it has everything to do with Werman's outstanding glove. He made a couple non-routine plays to preserve the perfecto.

- I hear North Korea is looking for a new sports information director. Maybe the George Washington guys should apply for the job. I get that these official-site writeups are, first and foremost, about showcasing your own team's deeds and doings. It leads to occasionally comic moments, like Maryland omitting the score from the headline of a game writeup against Virginia because the score was 27-4 and that's embarrassing. But even then the score was in the first paragraph, and the next two talked about UVA. When the actual media has taken to pointing and laughing at your Baghdad Bobbery, that's how you know you've taken it a little too far. Next time, try the first paragraph instead of the seventh. There'll still be room to talk about the brilliant exploits of your mighty pitchers courageously working their way out of a bases-loaded jam for creation of great fortress of juche.

- Speaking of actual media: yes, top play on Sportscenter this morning. And a headline on MLB.com. UVA is not yet considered an elite program along the lines of an LSU or a Fullerton, but this is one step toward getting there.

the perfect recruiting board update

OK, it's not really the best recruiting board update in world history, but it's getting its own post this weekend. Anyway, I'm not the perfect one, Will Roberts is. See below about that. The recruiting board is here, and don't forget the handy prospect map. Here are the updates:

- Removed CB Terrell Burt, TE Dakota Jackson, and DE Brent Wilkerson, all from green. They committed to Baylor, VT, and Penn State, respectively. Bummer about Wilkerson because if it weren't for his very high interest in Penn State I'd have had him in the blue. Not to mention he's from DeMatha and a hell of a prospect.

- Moved DE (or WR, whatever) Eli Harold from yellow to green.

- Moved OL Win Homer from green to blue.

- Added OT Adam Bisnowaty to green.

- Added LB Devin Vandyke to yellow. Best guess is that he follows brother Ronny to VT, but who knows?

Also, the "competition" column got a full makeover. About half the prospects got schools added. No, I am not going to enumerate them all for you.

This weekend, of course, is the spring game, and the visitor list for that is a hell of a lot more impressive than either of the junior days combined. You're wanting to know if anyone might commit on Saturday, of course. Maybe. I wouldn't bet on it, but maybe. I won't be blown out of my chair if someone does, but I'm not expecting it.

Two things:

- This couldn't wait til tomorrow. Oh, it'll get it's own post tomorrow. But while I was busy on this thing, Will Roberts was busy mowing down George Washington hitters at Davenport. 27 up, 27 down for the first perfect game in UVA history and the second ever thrown by an ACC team. And only the 8th 9-inning perfect game in NCAA history. Dear UVA athletic department: I can haz moar video streaming plz. Yes I like very much what you've done so far, now I want more candy. I know baseball history used to come through the radio, but this isn't the 1940s.

- The ACC Sports Journal is doing the way-early thing, as the media is wont to do, and - this for basketball by the way - hoists UVA to fourth in the preseason power rankings. If that ends up coming true it means the tournament for sure. I think there'll be two schools of thought concerning UVA hoops next season: the one that says adding Mike Scott to a lineup that won seven conference games and was in the hunt every night will result in a breakthrough season, and the one that doesn't concern itself with basketball in the ACC outside of North Carolina. It'll be interesting to see which one is the more heavily propagated come November.

Bonus amusement line from the ACCSJ: "Seth Greenberg won’t have to worry about getting snubbed by the NCAA tournament selection committee again next year. The Hokies might get snubbed by the NIT instead."

baseball preview, part 1

In case you haven't noticed - understandable if for some reason this is your only lifeline to UVA sports - there's once again a pretty good baseball team playing at Davenport Field this year. Pitching is by far its strong suit, which will take you a long way, for sure. The team is 12-1 with the lone loss coming in a 2-1 series win against East Carolina. They're ranked as high as 6th and as low as 11th (college baseball has tons of polls) by virtue of three weeks' worth of strong showings, including a total dismantling of SEC semi-power Auburn.

All this without hitting a single home run.

It's a slightly new era in college baseball; metal bats continue to be used, but they're deader than they used to be. This probably bodes well for UVA, at least this year; Brian O'Connor has eschewed power hitting in his recruiting in favor of pitching pitching pitching and guys who can hit for really high averages. Making it harder to hit home runs gives UVA a little bit of an edge since that's not what the offense depends on.

Today we'll have a look at the pitching, and later this week, the position players.

Starters

Unlike last year when the Sunday starter was up for grabs a little bit at the beginning of the year, this year the weekend starters are engraved in marble. They are:

- Friday - Danny Hultzen. Hultzen is the guy Charlie Sheen wishes he was. Sheen was misquoted in his rantings; what he meant to say was, he has tiger blood and Hultzen DNA. Hultzen has a real chance to win every variation of national player of the year award there is, and will certainly be drafted with one of the top ten - maybe top five - picks in the MLB draft ths June. Even though he's leading the team in OPS and batting average and is second in RBI, his hitting duties will probably lighten up a little as the stretch run gets hot. Hultzen's pitching is what makes him valuable - he carries an 0.87 ERA so far and has struck out 36 in just over 20 innings. Yes. Almost two strikeouts per inning.

He did walk a batter once this season, though. So he has been known to throw the occasional pitch out of the strike zone. Still - it's not likely UVA will lose any of his starts this year, until maybe the postseason. To make matters worse for opposing lineups, Hultzen is a southpaw.

- Saturday - Tyler Wilson. Wilson has made a smooth transition from long relief. His 23-to-5 K/BB ratio would look pretty awesome if not for Hultzen's 36-to-1. Aw hell....it's still pretty awesome. Wilson's move out of the pen has created a few question marks in long relief, but so far the team has been able to handle it.

- Sunday - Cody Winiarski. A little bit of a soft-tosser, the start to this season has been tremendously encouraging as Winiarski has been striking out more hitters than last year. He and Wilson have started the year with ERAs under 2, and they share a .206 opponents' BA. A tough, four-run first inning against ECU was enough to tag Cody with the only loss of the season, but outside of that one inning he hasn't allowed a single run, and he's averaged 6+ innings in his three starts. Winiarski's hot start is the most encouraging sign of the whole season; if this kind of pitching holds up, UVA will have easily the best weekend rotation in the ACC.

- Weekdays - Will Roberts and Kyle Crockett. Crockett was probably the most-hyped recruit of the freshman class that actually made it to the season (Justin Nicolino signed with the Blue Jays and Tyler Skulina transferred before the season began.) Crockett won a few awards and such as a high school pitcher and had the added advantage of being from Virginia. UVA fans love a Virginian. But Crockett will spend most of his time in the bullpen and probably only get starts when the weekday schedule includes two games, such as in a couple weeks against Towson. Roberts is the main weekday starter. A junior, Roberts hasn't quite been able to pitch his way into the weekend rotation, but will probably be needed there next year. He's good enough for some emergency innings against ACC competition, if needed, and should be able to rack up the wins one by one pitching against the JMUs and Towsons of the world.

Bullpen

This looked like a question mark before the year began, with Wilson moving to the rotation, but events since then have solidified the outlook. The pen got hit by graduation - especially at closer where Kevin Arico was unbelievably dependable in 2010.

The new closer is sophomore Branden Kline, who had an excellent freshman season, especially late as the fourth starter in tournament play. Kline has yet to allow a run and has five saves already. There will be no problems here.

Whit Mayberry had a tough start to the season, but he's settled down nicely. Mayberry has starter's endurance and will probably be the primary long reliever this year. Kyle Crockett is the first lefty out of the pen and he's pitching well, too. Left-handed pitching out of the pen is much more readily available than it's been in the past - Crockett can provide a couple innings, if needed, and then there's Scott Silverstein. Silverstein's history of arm trouble is longer than O.J.'s rap sheet; multiple shoulder surgeries have kept him off the mound until this year. He made his first pitching appearance for UVA a little over a week ago. He's not gonna be rushed back, but he gives us a situational lefty.

Justin Thompson is another guy we'll see plenty of, though he's more likely to be primarily a weekday reliever. And the freshman class brought a lot of arms that we've already seen a little of and will get a few innings here and there - guys like Ryan Ashooh and Austin Young.

No doubt, pitching is where this team will draw its success from. As you'll see a little later, the batting lineup isn't quite the murderers' row it's been in the past, but given the choice between OK hitting and awesome pitching, or the opposite, I'll take the awesome pitching every time. The new bats should help this staff - not that they need much help - to keep their numbers down. Except for their strikeouts. Strikeouts will be up; Danny Hultzen is rapidly climbing the all-time list at UVA. I'm very confident in calling this the best rotation in the ACC, and if the bullpen continues to pitch the way they started the season, they'll be able to claim the same crown.

weekend review: championship edition, again

Y'know what, let's just do this the same way we did last week....

SWIMMING

Huzzah, again. The men followed up the ladies to sweep the pool in Chapel Hill and bring home the third ACC championship of the season. And it turned out not to be quite as close as it looked like it might. Didn't even come down to the last relay, but we won that anyway, so, whee. Here are the results, and a summary below:

1st places:
800 free relay
500 free
50 free
200 free relay
200 free
400 medley relay
100 free
400 free relay

1st-place swimmers (individual only):
Matt McLean (500 free)
Scot Robison (50 free, 200 free, 100 free)

NCAA 'A' cuts:
800 free relay (Azar/Smith/Robison/McLean)
200 free (Robison)
400 free relay (Robison/Geissinger/Azar/McLean)

NCAA 'B' cuts:
200 medley relay (Oleson/Casey/Geissinger/Azar)
500 free (McLean, Snawerdt, Smith, Ankosko)
200 IM (Houser, Azar, Casey, Inwood)
50 free (Robison, Geissinger)
200 free relay (Robison/Geissinger/Oleson/Azar)
400 IM (Howser, Ankosko, Hayes, Inwood)
100 fly (Oleson, Geissinger)
200 free (McLean, Azar, Smith, Snawerdt)
100 breast (Casey, Norstedt)
100 back (Oleson, Johnson, Murray, Wren)
400 medley relay (Oleson/Casey/Geissinger/Robison)
1650 free (McLean, Snawerdt, Smith, Ankosko)
200 back (Johnson, Murray, Wren)
100 free (Robison, Geissinger)
200 breast (Azar, Norstedt, Casey)
200 fly (Houser)

ACC records:
200 free (Robison, 1:32.45)
100 free (Robison, 42.42)

Miscellaneous domination notes: Took 1-2-3-5 in the 500 free and 200 free ... won 800 free relay by 6 and a half seconds (that's over half the pool length) ... won every freestyle event but the 1650.

We didn't win many individual events, but we just killed the relays and owned everything that had "freestyle" in it. There are a lot of those events, so it's nice to be deep there. And as you might guess from all those NCAA cut times, we're pretty deep everywhere else too, if not quite elite. Scot Robison was the Most Valuable Swimmer, and as you can see was very, very deserving, but I can't let this go without a shout for John Azar, who gets my nod for Ironman.

Azar anchored the 200 medley relay - for him, that meant a pure-speed, balls-to-the-wall sprint - and then got back in and led off the 800 free relay (so for him, a 200 free) on the same evening. I think he was the only swimmer on any team to swim both events, let alone anchor one and lead off the next. And this former swimmer thought in his swimming days that the 200 free was the worst event in history, as it's not quite a sprint but not exactly a distance race where you can lay off the first few lengths, either. Oh, Azar also swam the 200 breast - a very difficult endurance-ish race that doesn't exist on the high school level. Oh, and the 200 IM, which you start off with 50 yards of the most torturous stroke known to man - the butterfly. Gutsy meet.

So. ACC champs again, woot. Give Bernardino a raise for pulling a comfortable winning lineup out of what looked like it'd be a very close meet. Whatever it takes to make sure that man is UVA's swim coach for the next thirty years.

BASKETBALL

What did you expect without Sylven Landesberg?

Hell, what did you expect with Sylven Landesberg?

BASEBALL

Nice to know the bats are in good working order, yes? I'd like to know what Keith Werman's been eating for breakfast, because he's 10-for-15 on the season.

We can hit, that's been established. The pitching still needs to settle out a bit though. Some of our guys have been their usual lights-out selves, and I'm looking mainly in the direction of Danny Hultzen and Kevin Arico here. All isn't roses, though. I'd say Cody Winiarski still hasn't put the iron grip on the starter's job yet, despite the seven strikeouts on Sunday. URI isn't a chump team, but they're the kind we shouldn't be giving up more than maybe three runs to. Tyler Wilson has had a really rough start, too.

Wilson should be fine. We saw last year what he can do for us in that middle relief role, and it's high-quality workhorse stuff. He'll get settled. Winiarski is still mostly an unknown quantity, though, as are most of the guys who might step up if O'Connor decides to go in a different direction. Will Roberts is probably the most well-known, and that's not saying much, what with only 11 appearances last year. Eventually you'd have to figure Branden Kline will be eased into a starting role too, beginning as a second weekday starter and going from there.

We have one weekend left to sort it out, because after that is Florida State.

LACROSSE

Since I'm talking about lacrosse, that must mean it's time to harp on faceoffs again. The bane of existence for the UVA lax fan. You might remember me mentioning that Stony Brook returned last year's #1 faceoff guy in the nation, so our guys had a big test this week, and.....they did really, really well. Adam Rand was that guy, and we held him to a measly 11-of-24. Ryan Benincasa was a sparkling 12-of-16. This may not mean we will be excellent on faceoffs going forward, but for sure, it means we can be.

Now just tighten up that first-quarter defense. Adam Ghitelman should not have to make seven saves in a period, ever. I think it's clear, even after three games against non-elite competition, we really miss Mike Timms and Matt Kelly. 'Specially Timms.

So. It's Syracuse week, and it's a rare chance to play the game at Klockner and not a neutral or road site. So let's keep the snow off the ground in Charlottesville this week, OK, because having to play that game on the Turf Field would suck. The weather forecast has it getting steadily warmer all week in Charlottesville with Saturday getting up to 52 degrees and Sunday being a balmy 55. No snow. Klockner plz.

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Through circumstances that actually were almost completely under my control, I only put three posts up last week, which is some kind of laziness record for me. Not going to be a lot better about it this week, I'm afraid. Tomorrow, in lieu of posting, I'll be working on the long-promised and not-delivered highlight videos of one of the basketball games I've been sitting on. Probably Miami, because I've been sitting on it longer. This is so as to do my small part to hopefully break the string of bad juju the basketball team has been dealing with. (I think I just set some kind of record for two-letter words in a row.) It's a good time to try, because I've got tickets to the Wednesday game at BC and I'd rather they won that one.