Looking back at the top UVa Athletics moments of 2021

Virginia athletics enters 2022 with a pair of national championships to defend.

The department also ends the year with a football program in transition and a men’s basketball program struggling to meet short-term expectations. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to loom over the entire athletic program, most recently forcing the postponement of Thursday’s women’s basketball game against Notre Dame and, previously, the cancelation of Wednesday’s Fenway Bowl appearance.

There was a trip to Omaha, a record-setting season and a highly anticipated recruiting class. A buzzer-beater, a no-hitter… and a throwback to an offensive lineman.

CavsCorner is taking a look back at the 10 biggest moments in UVa athletics in 2021:

Almost 43,000 fans were in the stands at Scott Stadium to watch the Wahoos open the 2021 season by shutting out William & Mary on September 4th. Brennan Armstrong overcame a slow start to throw for 336 yards. The defense held the Tribe to less than 200 total yards. Optimism abounded following the 1-0 start.

But it was that crowd in the stands that made the whole scene so significant. After a year of playing sporting events with minimal (or no) fans because of the pandemic, Scott Stadium had that familiar buzz again. College football was back.

The baseball team returned from its exams break in mid-May with work to do, four games under .500 in the ACC with six to play and squarely on the NCAA regional bubble. Wake Forest was in town for the season’s final three games at Disharoon Park, with UVa lefty Andrew Abbott in line to start the series opener.

Abbott’s first eight outs were all via strikeout; by the end of the fourth inning, he had logged 11. He finished with a career-high 16 in 7 1/3 scoreless innings. Jake Berry got the final two outs of that frame. Griff McGarry struck out the side in the ninth. The trio combined to strike out 20, walk four—and give up zero hits.

The 17-0 win was the seventh no-hitter in program history. It got the Hoos going as they finished the regular season 5-1 and eventually qualified for a regional.

Trey Murphy arrived at UVa in the summer of 2020 after two seasons at Rice. He left a year later as a first-round NBA Draft pick—leaving a deep void that has lingered into this season.

Murphy was expected to sit out the 2020-21 season as a transfer until that NCAA rule was waived amid the pandemic. In his UVa debut, Murphy knocked down four of his six 3-point attempts on his way to a team-high 21 points against Towson. It was a glimpse of what was to come.

The 6-foot-9 shooter averaged 11.3 points for the season, making more than half of his shots from the floor including 43.3 percent from 3-point range. He declared for the NBA Draft and in July, was picked No. 17 overall by the Memphis Grizzlies before getting traded on draft night to the New Orleans Pelicans.

As of Thursday, Murphy was averaging 13.7 minutes per game with the Pelicans.

By the end of the first day of March’s NCAA women’s swimming and diving championships in Greensboro, UVa was atop the team standings. Three days later, the Wahoos clinched the first national title in program history.

Paige Madden won three individual titles; Alex Walsh and Kate Douglass each won individual titles as well, as did UVa’s 800-yard freestyle relay team. Virginia finished the four-day event with 491 points; second-place NC State finished with 354.

That success continued at the Olympic Games in Tokyo in July, where Walsh and Douglass took the silver and bronze medals in the 200-meter IM, Madden was part of a silver medal-winning 4x200 freestyle relay team, and incoming freshman Emma Weyant won silver in the 400-meter IM.

Todd DeSorbo’s team has spent the first two months of this season at No. 1 in the Division I coaches poll.

It’s been a down year for Tony Bennett’s team through 12 games, with the Wahoos just 7-5 heading into a three-game ACC road swing that starts Saturday in Syracuse. But help is on the way—or at least that’s the hope among UVa fans.

All four players who signed with Virginia in November are rated as four-star recruits ranked in the 2022 Rivals150. In the Rivals era, UVa has signed one other class with that kind of star power: the 2016 group that developed into the nucleus of the program’s 2019 national title team.

Combo guard Isaac McKneely was the first to commit, in late January. Versatile forward Isaac Traudt is the highest-ranked of the four prospects in the Rivals150, at No. 60. Leon Bond and Ryan Dunn profile as long, quick wing defenders that Bennett and his staff are always in search of.

The four-player class ranks 13th nationally.

Armstrong was determined to be a better quarterback in his second season as UVa’s starter. He spent the spring finding a rhythm with his receivers. He worked on pre-snap reads and adjustments. He played faster and was more decisive in camp.

The end result was the best season by a quarterback in Virginia football history. Armstrong threw for 4,449 yards, making him the program’s first 4,000-yard passer. Armstrong’s 31 touchdown passes and 4,700 total yards were also school records.

The lefty missed out on an opportunity to break the ACC’s single-season passing record (he finished 145 yards short) when the Fenway Bowl was canceled. The question for Armstrong heading into 2022 is whether he’ll be back to run it back: the quarterback has yet to announce whether he’ll return to school or enter the NFL Draft.

An early April loss at Georgia Tech dropped the UVa baseball team into a 4-12 hole in ACC play. A program that hadn’t reached the postseason since 2017 looked like it would be spending June playing summer ball again. Instead, the Wahoos got hot.

It began by taking the final two games in Atlanta, giving UVa its first ACC series win of the season. The Hoos played .700 ball over the final two months of their conference schedule to finish 18-18 in the league. After a run to the ACC semifinals, UVa earned a No. 3 regional seed in the NCAA Tournament.

The magic didn’t stop until the Wahoos were back in Omaha for the first time since winning the College World Series in 2015. There was the Matt Wyatt Game. The Brandon Neeck Game. The Devin Ortiz Game. The Kyle Teel Game. A few Griff McGarry games.

UVa won six straight postseason elimination games before ultimately losing to Texas in Omaha.

Virginia men’s lacrosse is back where the program has always felt like it belonged—at the pinnacle of the sport.

When goalkeeper Alex Rode knocked away the potential tying goal with just seconds remaining, it sealed UVa’s 17-16 win over Maryland and clinched the program’s seventh NCAA title. It also marked the first time the program had won back-to-back national championships, with the 2019 also hoisting the trophy before the 2020 season was canceled to due the pandemic.

Attackman Connor Shellenberger, the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament, is back for 2022. So is two-time All-American Matt Moore. Lars Tiffany enters his sixth UVa season with the preseason No. 1 team in the country.

It began with a buzzer beater.

Freshman Reece Beekman’s 3-pointer as time expired gave the Hoos a 72-69 win over Syracuse in the ACC quarterfinals. The victory looked like it put the league’s regular season champion in a good spot in Greensboro, where it set up a semifinal matchup against a Georgia Tech team that lost to the Wahoos twice during the regular season.

But that game never happened. Justin McKoy’s positive COVID-19 test forced Virginia to pull out of the tournament, and let the Cavaliers’ status for the NCAA Tournament in limbo. The team’s status remained in question for the next week, until it ultimately cleared protocols and traveled to Indiana to face Ohio.

UVa the last of the 68 teams in the bracket to arrive. The Hoos landed on March 19th and lost to the Bobcats 62-58 the next day, bringing UVa’s unique postseason experience to an abrupt end.

Five-and-a-half seasons into his UVa tenure, Bronco Mendenhall finally broke the .500 mark at the school with the Wahoos’ mid-October shutout of Duke. A week later, the Hoos held on to beat Georgia Tech and improve to 6-2 on the season.

Mendenhall never won another game at Virginia.

The Hoos dropped their last four games to finish the season 6-6 before their bowl game was canceled. The lasting memory of that late-season fade will be the finale against Virginia Tech. UVa gave up too many big plays on defense and one critical mistake on special teams—and ran a throwback to left tackle Bobby Haskins with a chance to go in front in the game’s final minute. Final score: 29-24 Hokies.

Mendenhall shocked everyone less than a week later by announcing he’d be stepping down after the season. The decision set the program into chaos. Assistant coaches resigned; recruits flipped commitments; multiple starters entered the transfer portal. Rumors ran roughshod.

After a weeklong search (that felt more like a month), Clemson offensive coordinator Tony Elliott was hired as the Cavaliers’ new coach. As the new year approaches, Elliott is still working behind the scenes to answer the first round of pressing questions facing his tenure. The defense needs to be rebuilt, starting with the coaching staff. The O-line needs reinforcements. Armstrong’s status remains uncertain.

Of all the moments that the Virginia athletics department experienced (or endured) throughout 2021, the change of leadership for the football program is the one most likely to have significant long-term ramifications.

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