Monday Motivation: Golf keeps rolling as soccer shines on Senior Day

Happy Monday! Here’s Justin Anderson dancing:

It FINALLY feels like fall in Virginia, and as the leaves turn, the Virginia teams keep winning. Let’s check in with the week that was!

Rapid Fire

-Former Virginia Baseball player Joe McCarthy had what you would call a productive season with the Rays organization.

-Huge congrats to J.C. Aragone of the Men’s Tennis team for winning the singles title at the Atlantic ITA Regionals with a big victory of Jacob Dunbar from Richmond.

The Men’s Tennis team had a big week as they received their championship rings and were at Scott Stadium on Saturday to be recognized for their second straight NCAA title. They also let me hold the trophy. It was a big week for everyone involved.

-The NBA has been a little slow on the uptake, but they’re starting to fall victim to the #swoon.

Check out these highlights of Joey Buckets crushing it in the preseason.

-Harris isn’t the only pro Hoo that has been crushing it in the various professional basketball leagues:

-Swimming and Diving kicked off their season this week by absolutely dominating Pitt, sweeping the meet on the Men’s and Women’s side and winning 27 of 28 races. The Hoos aren’t in action again until November 4-5 when Michigan and Penn State come to town for a dual meet.

-Lars Tiffany got his first big recruiting get as the head coach of the Men’s Lacrosse team. Check out more about the top 2019 recruit, Connor Shellenberger, here.

-Virginia Basketball is closing in on their season opener (Nov. 11 at UNC-G) and held their Media Day and Pepsi Blue White Scrimmage this week.

-No. 16 Men’s Soccer blanked William & Mary 3-0 and played to a scoreless draw with Pitt to push their unbeaten streak to eight games. Against W&M, Edward Opoku, Jean-Christoffe Koffi, and Wesley Wade scored for the Hoos as Jeff Caldwell had six saves.

The win over the Tribe pushed Virginia’s record against non-conference opponents to 6-0-2.

Against the Panthers, Virginia battled some crummy weather and held Pitt without a shot on goal to come out with the tie. The Hoos (8-2-5, 2-2-3 ACC) close out the regular season against Duke on Senior Night next Friday at 7pm.

-No. 8 Women’s Soccer took down NC State (3-1) and Boston College (3-2) this week. Against the Wolfpack, first year Taylor Ziemer scored twice in the first half to give the Hoos all the advantage they would need. Betsy Brandon’s second half goal added a little extra breathing room for Virginia, which only allowed two shots in the game.

In Sunday’s Senior Day matchup against the Eagles, Virginia fell behind 1-0 early, but scored three second half goals (after I left) to secure the ACC victory. The Hoos got goals from Alexis Shaffer, Jasmine Wright (the first of her career), and Kristen McNabb in the game. Virginia honored six seniors: Morgan Reuther, Morgan Stearns, Alexis Shaffer, Tina Iordanou, Kristen McNabb, and Meghan Cox.

Team of the Week

No. 7 Men’s Golf won their third straight fall tournament (in the four they have played) as they tied with Texas in the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate. Jimmy Stanger tied for first overall as he sank a five-foot birdie putt on his last hole to clinch the co-victory with Oklahoma’s Max McGreevy.

Of the 17 teams in attendance a the tournament, 11 were ranked in the Top-25, so the Hoos are playing well against some of the best competition in the country.

I’ll let those terrible shirts slide since you won, but let’s leave those at home next time.

Wahoo of the Week

This week’s StLMMWotW goes to the one and only Leah Smith. Our Olympic gold medalist instrumental in helping the Hoos win their season-opener with two new AFC pool records set in the 1000-yd free and the 500 free. Her time of 9:23.79 in the 1000 free was a full 10 seconds faster than her previous best. On top of that, she got to hang out with Antonio Brown on the sidelines of the Pittsburgh Steelers game on Sunday. That’s a win.

Tweet of the Week

You may have seen this fun bottle flip from UVA’s Joe Spaziani.

Kurt Benkert had some people he thought would enjoy seeing the flip.

I’m sorry, this is just HYSTERICAL. Why ESPN Deportes? And POTUS? Priceless.

As always, GO HOOS!