What a Weekend! Cavaliers Run the Table

To prove it was no fluke, the women turned around on Saturday and swept Troy 3 - 0 (25-23, 25-21, 27-25). This was a classic trap game sandwiched between a big win and the start of conference play, yet the women came through.

That this was a team performance is evidenced by Kate Dean leading the way on Saturday with nine kills and 11 blocks in just three sets,) whicle Becca Wright (13 kills) and Jasmine Robinson (10 kills) provided the firepower against Ohio State.

At the same time that the women were playing in Columbus, the #3 Virginia field hockey team was hosting #13 Boston College at Turf Field in Charlottesville. The women won 2 - 0 with this opening goal by Mia Abello providing all the scoring Virginia would need.

Then, to prove the result wasn't a fluke, and on a short turnaround with an eight-hour bus ride to Syracuse tossed in for good measure, the women defeated the #4 Orange 2 - 1. Abello was again the star as this penalty, in the game's last minute, sealed the deal.

I don't care who you are or what sport you play, but there are few pressure-packed moments like a last-minute penalty take. On the road? Versus the #4 team in the country? Game tied? And the knowledge that a penalty is a free goal and that is has to be converted?

That was a perfect take, maybe an inch inside the upright. Sports doesn't get any better than this.

Except it does.

In the final game of that Friday night, the men's soccer team hosted the #1 Wake Forest Deacons at Klöckner Stadium in Charlottesville. The men erupted for a 6 - 3 lead, and at one point were up 5 - 0. And no, that's not a typo. Five uninterrupted goals, against quality opposition, is just unheard of. Wake tried to make a game of it, because pride, even getting a pair of goals and forcing an own-goal before Virginia's Sami Oulouheu restored order with a last minute goal.

Unbelievable. I'm still in shock.

Meanwhile, the women's soccer team arrived in Syracuse a day before the field hockey team with the most reasonable of the weekend's games to win. Sure, it's Syracuse, and they haven't beaten an ACC team in almost three years, but Virginia is #1 in the land and heavy is the head that wears the crown. Already this season, UNC, Stanford and Tennessee have followed their ascendancy to the top spot with a dud of a game. Would Virginia similarly succumb? Well, no. Lia Godfrey rocketed a shot past a well-guarded near post late in the first half and the Hoos walked away with a comfortable 3 - 0 win.

All that had to happen was for the football team to hold serve.

Did they ever. One week after setting a program record with 700 yards against William & Mary, the Cavaliers had gained almost 400 yards in the first half en-route to a four-touchdown victory over Stanford. I have to tell you, I was more interested in the yardage total for the game than the final score: I wanted 800 total yards! And that is a first-world football problem, and it has been so long since the program could even think in such extremes. I'm no longer much of a football fan, so it is hard for me to admit this sometimes, but football is the most important sport on the collegiate landscape. And for the first time in Tony Elliott's four years on Grounds, there is some life on the gridiron.

And the icing on the cake of an already great weekend? Dabo Swinney and the Clemson Tigers are 1 - 3 having lost to Syracuse 34 - 21.

Wahoowa!