Championship(s).

What a weekend to be a UVA fan.

Virginia Lacrosse beat the stuffing out of Denver on Saturday, winning 14-8 to advance to today's national championship game against Maryland.

We then played a tough, gritty, nip-and-tuck game against UMD today.  With Colin Briggs and Matt White stepping up with five and three goals respectively, we won the national championship, 9-7 over the Terps.

Awesome.

Just fantastic.

I couldn't imagine a better story.  I was ready to completely write off this year's lacrosse team, after they bent over and took it from this same Maryland team back in early April.  Since that time, the Brattons were booted from the team, and addition by subtraction ignited an attack led by Steele Stanwick's playmaking ability and numerous finishers doing their thing.  The D also came together -- especially during the NCAA tournament -- thanks to Coach Starsia's brilliant switch to the zone in the wake of the season-ending injury to star defenseman Matt Lovejoy.

I'm really happy for this team.  And somebody has to say it --- maybe this begins in earnest the "moving on" from the Yeardley Love murder last year.

Also, I wonder how the Brattons are feeling right now?


As good as it was, lacrosse wasn't the only reason for celebration this weekend.  Virginia Baseball slaughtered Wake Forest on Wednesday, then beat Miami in that hard-fought 11-hour masterpiece on Friday, played the grittiest game I've seen all season in beating North Carolina 3-2 on Saturday night (in what was basically a meaningless game for both teams -- we had already locked up the championship game bid), and then scored seven runs on three homers to beat Florida State in the ACC championship game.

We're ACC champs!

And we're also the #1 overall seed in the NCAA baseball tournament.  We host a regional with 2-seed ECU, 3-seed St. John's, and 4-seed Navy.  We play Navy at 1:00 PM on Friday in the double-elimination regional tournament.  Here's the schedule:

Game 1, 1pm Fri -- Navy vs. Virginia
Game 2, 6pm Fri -- St. John's vs. ECU
Game 3, 1pm Sat -- Game 1 Loser vs. Game 2 Loser, LOSER ELIMINATED
Game 4, 6pm Sat -- Game 1 Winner vs. Game 2 Winner
Game 5, 1pm Sun -- Game 3 Winner vs. Game 4 Loser, LOSER ELIMINATED
Game 6, 6pm Sun -- Game 4 Winner vs. Game 5 Winner, elimination game for Game 5 Winner
Game 7, 6pm Mon (if necessary) -- Game 4 Winner vs. Game 5 Winner, LOSER ELIMINATED, WINNER ADVANCES TO SUPER REGIONAL

Speaking of which, we're paired up with the regional in LA, featuring 1-seed UCLA, 2-seed Fresno St., 3-seed UC Irvine, and 4-seed San Francisco.

If we win the double-elimination regional, we'd advance to host the Charlottesville super regional, with is a best-two-out-of-three series.  Winner of the super regional advances to the eight-team College World Series, in Omaha.

Here's the bracket.


I think we have the pitching to get there, even with Danny Hultzen a little off his A+ game.  I also think we have the offense to get there, but it's been streaky.  A bad streak could doom us this postseason... but I love our chances to make it back to the CWS!


What a great weekend.

GO HOOS!