The last time the Virginia women’s track and field team won ACC Outdoor Championships was 1987 — at least until this past weekend.

The Cavaliers traveled down to Winston-Salem, N.C. for the meet hosted by Wake Forest, ready to fight for a title. The team boasted a bevy of strong performances from typical standouts like senior Margot Appleton and junior Celia Rifaterra but also included some of the newer faces like freshman Maya Rollins and recent transfer junior Christiana Ellina. Their combined efforts led to a first place finish for the team and a shiny new trophy coming back with them to Charlottesville.

Appleton entered the women’s 1500 meters as the fastest collegiate runner in the NCAA event this season, and, even with that heavy weight on her shoulders, she did not disappoint. 

It was a textbook Appleton race. She got out solidly in the middle of the pack, staying there for the first 1100 meters. As the bell rang to note the last lap, Appleton began moving into Lane 2 to give herself some space to kick. In the first curve, Appleton had angled herself into first place side by side with Clemson sophomore Silvia Jelego with the rest of the runners right on their heels.

In the last 200 meters, the race became a battle between those two, seeing if Jelego could outkick Appleton who had begun to pull away. Appleton’s gait and technique stayed consistent and controlled, but as Jelego opened up her stride, she was clearly fighting exhaustion. Appleton maintained her kick and crossed the line into first place with a time of 4:11.28, winning this ACC event for the third year in a row.

After the race, the announcers asked her about the added stress on her as the top 1500 meter run in the NCAA right now.

“I think it’s good pressure to have,” Appleton said, “I knew I had to win that for my team, and it was even extra pressure but it was helpful and I’m glad I could get those points up.”

The Cavaliers took the win in another distance race as senior Jenny Schilling sped through the women’s 10k, nearly eight seconds ahead of the second place finisher from Notre Dame, senior Emily Covert.

On the field side of things, Rifaterra also won gold in the women’s high jump while also setting a new personal best of 1.86 meters, up from 1.84. Senior Carly Tarentino placed just behind her in second, tying with Pittsburgh junior Eva Baldursdottir.

New to Virginia this season, Ellina proved her talent in javelin, assuming yet another first place finish for the Cavaliers. She threw 52.44 meters — well over a meter ahead of the runner up. 

Though only a freshman, Rollins clocked a solid silver in the women’s 100 meter hurdles. She even beat out one of the favorites for the race, Duke senior Birgen Nelson, by six thousandths of a second. 

The women finished the meet with 93 points, winning the 2025 ACC Outdoor Championships by four points.

The men, however, did not fare as well, ending up in 13th place out of the 17 teams present. Junior Gary Martin ended up not racing in the men’s 1500 finals despite qualifying a couple days earlier. The announcers mentioned that someone had spotted Martin using an ice pack earlier in the meet, and eventually, it was revealed that he had tweaked his hamstring, and he was still intending to race at NCAA East Regionals.

However, there was still one exciting race for the Virginia men. Senior Alex Sherman took down the Virginia men’s 400 meter hurdles record, dropping 0.3 seconds from his personal best, finishing in 49.98 seconds and taking third in the event.

Overall, the ACC Championships were a good showing for the women’s team and prove that they most certainly have some up-and-coming stars for the rest of the season and for the year to come. Meanwhile, the men’s team will have some challenges to overcome heading into the rest of the postseason if they hope to continue raising the standard for their program finish at NCAA Championships. 

Before that though, Virginia will head to Jacksonville, Fla. for NCAA East Regionals, startingMay 28 and running through May 31. The women will hope to continue setting a higher standard for the overall team, having gained some confidence from this past weekend, and the men will find their footing for the remainder of the post-season, especially with Martin back on the track.

By:

Josh Rizzo


Tuesday, May 20, 2025 | 9:11 PM

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Jordan Hoover desperately wants to be part of the Seneca Valley boys volleyball team that kicks down the door and wins a WPIAL Class 3A championship.

The 6-foot-5 senior middle hitter and his teammates needed a strong fifth set to make sure they didn’t fall over the front stoop on their way in Tuesday night at Fox Chapel. Seneca Valley held off a ferocious effort from sixth-seeded Penn-Trafford, picking up a 3-2 (25-20, 22-25, 25-20, 20-25, 15-3) win to reach the WPIAL title game for the fourth time in the past 10 years.

The Raiders lost to Fox Chapel in 2015 and had a pair off losses to North Allegheny in 2021 and 2022.

“It would mean a lot,” Hoover said. “My older brother, Grant, came through the program, and he was on one of the teams that lost to NA. Just to be able to be the one to finally win and get a WPIAL banner up would be a big deal for me.”

The second-seeded Raiders (13-4) couldn’t get out of their own way. Seneca Valley had 23 errors during the first two sets.

The Raiders’ serving was erratic through the match.

“We struggled all night,” Seneca Valley coach Brett Poirier said. “This was probably the worst match we played all year. I can’t believe it came in the semis. When you struggle, you need little breaks and little things to go through. In the fifth set, I said we have to block better, pass better and do everything better.”

The Raiders made sure the fifth set was a formality. Penn-Trafford gave away the first point on an attack error. Mario Adolino followed with a service ace that dipped inside the line.

After a service error from Penn-Trafford, Malachi DeGraaf and Hoover had kills to stake the Raiders out to a 5-1 lead in the final set.

Penn-Trafford (12-7) wouldn’t get any closer.

Warriors coach Jim Schall said he was happy with the Warriors’ effort. Penn-Trafford still has a chance to reach the PIAA playoffs with a win in the third-place match.

“I’m really proud of the guys,” Schall said. “We were a third-place team in our section, I thought we were pretty good. I’m proud of the guys for the way they fought hard through the match. Unfortunately, we needed to get through that stretch in the fifth set still in the ballgame.”

Schall’s greatest challenge was to find a way to handle Seneca Valley’s middle blockers, 6-foot-9 Brandon Suski and Hoover. Once Penn-Trafford dropped a closely contested first set, Schall believed the Warriors would have a chance to make Seneca Valley sweat.

Owen Gisi and Nick Laskey hit well for the Warriors.

“For the most part, we handled their middle guys OK,” Schall said. “(Hoover) has a fantastic fifth game hitting and blocking. We did well enough to take their big guy (Suski) out. They had to put another guy in. We had to serve well.”

Hoover finished with 15 kills for the Raiders, and DeGraaf had 12. Seneca Valley now needs to find the combination necessary to earn a long-coveted championship.

“I just wanted our team to stay up and have the energy,” Hoover said. “When we get down on ourselves, that’s when we play worse. Even when we are playing badly, we have to keep the energy up.”

Tags: Penn-Trafford, Seneca Valley

GUELPH/ERAMOSA – Guelph/Eramosa residents will soon have a new place to play beach volleyball this summer. 

Approved at a Guelph/Eramosa council meeting Tuesday afternoon, staff have issued a tender to Bomar Landscaping Inc. for $205,169, not including HST, to construct six beach volleyball courts at Marden Park. 

Council previously approved an agreement with Perpetual Motion that would see the company fronting the money to build the courts in exchange for exclusive use of the facility from Sunday to Thursday between 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. and one Saturday tournament. 

Previously anticipated to cost $195,000, parks and facilities manager Jeff Myer said the township has already received the total initial funds in escrow and Perpetual Motion has confirmed they’re willing to proceed with the project at the current price. 

The municipality is responsible for roto-tilling the courts annually and topping up the sand about every five years, which is anticipated to cost $4,500 annually and is expected to be covered by facility rentals. 

According to Myer, the plan is to break ground in the next two weeks, with the opening planned for July 1.

When asked if he had any concerns, Myer had one answer: “I want to break ground.” 

Isabel Buckmaster is the Local Journalism Initiative reporter for GuelphToday. LJI is a federally-funded program.

The 2025 NCAA Division II national outdoor track and field championships will be taking place in Pueblo, Colorado, later this week with many of the top athletes at that level duking it out for medals and All American honors.

Even though they won’t be joining fellow standout underclassman Joshua Caleb to represent the University of Alaska Anchorage, sophomore hurdler Liv Heite and freshman jumper Mya Campbell are proud of the incredibly strong 2025 outdoor seasons they each produced.

“These young women are here every day, putting in the work and now the expectation and the tone is going to be set when the new underclassmen come in,” UAA associate head coach Ray Shadowens said. “It’s really fun when you have good athletes, and it’s even more fun when they’re young.”

Heite earned All-Region and All-GNAC honors in her second year with the program. Her most notable accomplishments include breaking the program record and posting the fourth-fastest time in GNAC history in the women’s 100 hurdles with a mark of 13.81 in the conference championship prelims.

She also ran the third-fastest time in program history in the 400 hurdles in a time of 1:01.22 in the conference championship finals. During the indoor season, she ran a school-record time of 8.64 in the 60 hurdles.

“I’m really satisfied and happy with everything I accomplished, especially the school records I broke and a lot of (personal records) I ran,” Heite said. “It was a really great season with the team in general. I really enjoyed the whole team this year. We had good team culture.”

Breaking a school record was one of her goals heading into the season and she was able to accomplish that feat in two events with the 60- and 100-meter hurdles.

“She has just skyrocketed in her talent,” Shadowens said. “We definitely got lucky getting her.”

Another goal was qualifying for nationals and even though she made the provisional mark, Heite just missed out of the top 22 mark to qualify for this year’s event, coming in at 31st in the 100-meter hurdles.

“I still have two more years here and I’m going to work towards that for the next two years and hopefully it will work out one of those times,” she said. “I’m confident that I can make it next year or the year after.”

Campbell followed a strong indoor season in which she earned All-GNAC honors with a third-place finish in the long jump with a personal-best mark of 18-6.

“I feel like my freshman season went well, better than I had expected,” Campbell said. “My favorite highlight was indoor GNAC because I hadn’t expected to place. I was just hoping to reach my goal of jumping at least 18 feet, but I ended up finishing with an 18′6.”

At the Pee Wee Halsell Invitational in late April, she posted the second-best mark in school history in the long jump with an 18-10.75. The following day at the Ralph Vernacchia Open, she bested herself with a first-place mark of 18-11.25. While she didn’t best herself a third time at the GNAC championships, Campbell still earned All-GNAC honors by coming in second with a mark of 18-7.75.

“The success gives me a lot of confidence,” she said. “At the beginning of the year, I was scared I wouldn’t be able to even jump what I had at the end of high school, let alone get further. But now I think I can improve my distances and times more.”

Campbell exceeded her coaches expectations for her first year and has them really excited about how she can develop over the remainder of her career.

Shadowens praised her for always being “very even keel” and receptive to instruction as well as selfless when needed as she also anchored their 4×400 relay team.

“Her emotions usually just stay in a straight line and her biggest thing is that she came in with a really open mind,” he said.

Disparate journeys to becoming Seawolves

Identifying top-notch talent in Alaska can be difficult when recruiting due to the limited resources available to some potential recruits.

“You never know what kind of competition it is or what the weather is going to be like,” Shadowens said.

Campbell proved to be an exception given that she grew up in the Mat-Su, where she attended Redington High School and participated in multiple sports in addition to track and field.

She believes her immediate success with the program is a testament to the talent Alaska has.

“It shows that we don’t have to be from some big town or place that has access to a track year-round to perform on the same level as everybody else,” Campbell said. “There is a lot of incredible athletes here and we all have an opportunity to make a big impact on the sports we do.”

Keeping the best local talent close to home is a priority for the Seawolves staff and having someone like Campbell is a prime example of what they aspire to be without venturing out of the state to continue their athletic career.

“We have a great recruiting class coming in, including some young Alaskan athletes and a couple more international,” Shadowens said.

While the UAA coaching staff didn’t have to look far to find Campbell last year, landing Heite took a much broader scope as she was born and raised in Olpe, Germany.

“We’ve had a connection with Germany before and it’s kind of identifying the talent,” Shadowens said. “As well as Liv is doing right now, she was a girl who actually didn’t run the 100 hurdles a lot and was kind of primarily focused on the 400-meter hurdles.”

The coaches noticed Heite had run some fast 100-meter hurdle times in the past and began to talk with her about exploring it further and trusting in their development plan.

“It’s always a big adjustment regardless if it’s just someone coming from an Alaska high school or coming across the world,” Shadowens said. “We always tell our athletes that we’re preparing you for the full four- or five-year game plan so it can beat up a freshman a little bit.”

After graduating from high school, Heite wasn’t sure what she wanted to do until she came across the opportunity to participate in a track and field abroad program.

“Doing track in Germany is a little more complicated with college because we don’t have college sports,” Heite said. “I was like, well, I’ll just go to the U.S. and try it there.”

Her original plan was only to spend one year overseas but she fell in love with Alaska so much that she decided to extend her stay to pursue a collegiate career.

“I came here and immediately really liked the team a lot,” Heite said. “Back home, my team is smaller and it’s just different than here where I connected to my teammates really fast and obviously I get along with the coaches very well. I trust them 100% and I just know that this is the best place for me to keep growing as far as I can and as far as I want.”

Both of the Seawolves’ rising stars have their sights set on improving their top marks from this year and getting even better moving forward which will help the program as a whole continue to improve with them as young role models.

“I’m so glad I was given the chance to be a part of this program,” Campbell said. “Everyone pushes each other to get better everyday, with the support we give each other and the talent we have I just know the program is only going to continue to go up.”

UCLA men’s volleyball’s 2025 season is officially over after getting swept by Long Beach State in the NCAA tournament final at the Covelli Center in Columbus, Ohio, on May 12. Assistant Sports editor Connor Dullinger gives his five main takeaways from the Bruins’ 2024-2025 season and predictions for what the future holds.

Goodbye Robinson

When former outside hitter Ethan Champlin graduated last season, many speculated on how the Bruins could replace the three-time AVCA First Team All-American.

And while many saw redshirt junior Cooper Robinson as the likely successor to Champlin, few thought the outside hitter would end up achieving such feats in 2025.

Simply put: He blew expectations out of the water.

The 2025 MPSF Player of the Year and AVCA First Team All-American ranked 11th in the country in hitting percentage and 25th in kills per set with a .387 clip and 3.56 tally, respectively.

Robinson tallied a .300-plus hitting percentage and double-digit kills in seven of his final 10 matches. He also finished the 2025 campaign leading the team with 365 kills, 120 digs and 41 service aces.

Robinson, however, has officially played his last game in the blue and gold – he will likely be playing professionally overseas next year.

The Bruins will now need to replace Robinson, and just like Champlain, it will be no easy feat.

The core four

Five Bruins are set to graduate in June.

Three were mainstays in the starting lineup – redshirt junior trio middle blocker Sean McQuiggan, libero Matthew Aziz and Robinson.

However, the Bruins should retain four key starters heading into the 2026 season – three are 2025 AVCA All-American selections, and two were integral to UCLA’s back-to-back championships in 2023 and 2024.

Junior setter Andrew Rowan may be the team’s most important key for next season. The three-time AVCA First Team All-American has been instrumental in pacing the Bruins’ offense since he stepped foot into Westwood.

UCLA should also return junior middle blocker Cameron Thorne – a two-time AVCA All-American – who not only led the team with a .521 hitting percentage, but also ranks 13th in the nation with 1.06 blocks per set.

Joining Thorne and Rowan is the outside hitter tandem of junior Zach Rama and freshman Sean Kelly. Rama found success in the back half of the season playing at the opposite spot but will most likely slide into the number one outside hitter position, alongside Kelly, after Robinson’s departure.

In the latter half of the season, Rama went 10 straight matches with double-digit kills while being named to the NCAA All-tournament team after sporting 31 kills across three NCAA tournament matches.

Kelly himself earned All-MPSF honorable mention distinctions and boasted double-digit kills in eight of his last 11 affairs.

Where is the libero?

The libero position hasn’t been addressed since former Bruin Troy Gooch graduated two years ago.

UCLA attempted a makeshift dual-libero strategy by using former Bruin outside hitter Alex Knight and Aziz in 2024 and Aziz and sophomore outside hitter Luca Curci in 2025.

And while 2024 ended with a national championship, 2025 proved the Bruins need a solidified defensive stalwart to patrol the backline.

UCLA ranked outside the nation’s top 50 in digs per set, and Curci alone sported 36 of UCLA’s 147 total reception errors.

And with Aziz graduating, the only liberos on the roster are Curci, junior Coleman McDonough and freshman Matthew Chun.

Chun has yet to play a set, while McDonough has played in just 13 sets.

While Curci remains on the roster, there is still a question whether coach John Hawks will utilize Curci as the sole backline defender, continue the libero-tandem strategy with another Bruin or recruit a traditional libero through the transfer portal.

Regardless of what Hawks decides, there will likely be new faces at libero. And if there aren’t, then reception may very well continue to be a problem for the Bruins next season.

Open spots aplenty

Despite the return of four starters, three starting positions are up for grabs come 2026.

The first – and arguably most important – is the third pin hitting spot behind Rama and Kelly. While I expect redshirt sophomore opposite David Decker to fill in, I wouldn’t count out incoming recruit pin hitter Grayson Bradford.

The 6-foot-11 Manhattan Beach, California, local is a top recruit in the nation and plays for one of the best high school volleyball teams in the country at Mira Costa.

With a dominant frame that should help fortify the Bruins’ block, his powerful hitting will also help their attack.

UCLA will also need a backup middle blocker to play second fiddle to Thorne. Here, I could see either of incoming juniors Thiago Zamprogno or Micah Wong Diallo taking the mantle formerly manned by McQuiggan.

While Diallo played in just 12 sets this season, he contributed at least three kills in four of his five appearances. On the other hand, Zamprogno played in 16 sets and eclipsed a season-high six kills in seven attempts against UC Irvine on Jan. 23.

The Bruins could bring in a middle blocker through the transfer portal, and I expect Hawks to recruit a libero to take over their defensive duties.

Fresh faces

While I expect Bradford to potentially slot in as one of the starting pin hitters, the Bruins also bring a plethora of other recruits.

UCLA-signed pin hitter Filippos Chrysostomou, who played for club team Apoel Nicosia in Cyprus. Touting professional volleyball experience and regarded as one of the most promising players in Europe, Chrysostomou could see playing time in his first year in Westwood.

Libero Brogan Glenn will also join the Bruins next season, and with the absence of proven defensive stalwarts on the roster, Glenn could be a shoo-in for the libero spot come 2026.

Joining Bradford and Chrysostomou on the outside is Marek Turner, who played for both the USA U21 and U19 national teams in 2024 and 2023, respectively.

Setter Rafa Urbina will join an already loaded position group that includes Rowan and freshman setter Trent Taliaferro. Urbina won best setter at the 2024 NORCECA Continental Championships.

With immense roster turnover during the past two seasons – and two to three starting spots lying out in the open – fresh faces could see a role on the court come 2026.

BOCA RATON, Fla. – Florida Atlantic’s Inside the Owls’ Burrow with conclude its ninth season with the final show of 2024-25 this week. The program originates on FanDuel Sports Network Florida (formerly Bally Sports Florida) and can also be viewed on fausports.com and YouTube. Episode 30 first airs on Thursday, May 22, at 5:30 p.m. It will re-air on Friday, May 23 at 7 p.m. and again on Saturday, May 23 at 11:30 a.m.

During the spring, Inside the Owls’ Burrow is scheduled for every other week.

This week’s show, produced and hosted by FAU’s Frank Forte, will feature the story of softball’s Kiley Shelton, whose two siblings also play Division I softball and baseball, which is no surprise after their parents played those sports at Charlotte. Forte will also take a look at the best moments and plays from the 2025 baseball season.

Plus, a sitdown with Head Men’s Basketball Coach John Jakus on the off season roster restructuring while also taking a look ahead to football in 2025 with Defensive Coordinator Brett Dewhurst mic’d up at one of the spring practices. Finally, beach volleyball Assistant Coach Kristi Tekavec is featured in “Life’s a Beach” which is hosted by senior Sydney Schrodere.

Inside the Owls’ Burrow is also available on fausports.com and YouTube. 

 
THE SHOW