Cavalier Corner is the publication just for UVa sports fans!
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TOP WOMEN'S TEAMS The women's tennis team put together the finest sea‑ son in program history. The Cavaliers ended their season with a school‑best 24‑6 record, earned a share of their first ACC regular‑season title and then captured the league tournament championship for the first time. UVa earned the No. 3 overall seed in the NCAA Tourna‑ ment — the highest seed ever for the program — and went on to post the first NCAA quarterfinal appearance in school history. The Cavaliers also produced the national champion, Danielle Collins, in the individual tournament. In the fall, the women's soccer squad fashioned a per‑ fect regular season (19‑0‑0) and reached the NCAA Col‑ lege Cup for the first time since 1991. UVa was the first team to have a perfect regular season since Stanford in 2009 (20‑0) and the first ACC squad to do it since UNC in 2003 (18‑0). The Cavaliers, who entered the NCAA Tournament seeded No. 1 overall, went on to finish 24‑1‑1 with the only blemishes coming at the hands of Virginia Tech in the ACC Tournament and eventual champion UCLA (4‑2 in penalty kicks after a 1‑1 draw) in the national semifinals. Virginia averaged three goals per game this season, the most of any team in Division I, and scored more goals (78) than it gave up shots on goal (63). Also notable, women's lacrosse navigated one of the country's toughest schedules and advanced to the na‑ tional semifinals for the first time since 2007, women's cross country finished ninth at the NCAA Champion‑ ships, women's swimming and diving finished 11th at the NCAA Championships (the program's highest finish since 2010), and women's golf finished 14th at the NCAA Championships. championship and their first NCAA Tournament quarterfinal berth, and then shocked the college tennis world by becoming the first player in program history to win an individual NCAA championship. No Virginia women's player had ever advanced past the NCAA round of 16 prior to Collins' amazing feat. The victory earned her ITA All‑ America recognition, and her 37 singles wins on the year rank second all time at UVa in a single season. The All‑ACC first‑team per‑ former earned Most Valuable Player honors at the ACC Championships by going 2‑0 in singles and 3‑0 in doubles. She was also one of four nomi‑ nees for the Honda Sports Award for women's tennis, which is presented annually to the top female athletes in 12 NCAA‑sanctioned sports and signifies "the best of the best in collegiate athletics." Second-year Nathan Kirby burst onto the scene this spring, firing the fifth no-hitter in school history while strik- ing out 18 batters April 4 at Pittsburgh. PHOTO BY JIM DAVES/COURTESY UVA