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THE YEAR IN VCU ATHLETICS, FROM ‘A’ TO ‘Z’ A is for Around The Horns. It’s best to get these shameless plugs out of the way early. B is for B-Squared, Double ‘B’, ‘Big Shot’ Bradford Burgess. A freshman out of nearby Benedictine, Burgess started all 34 men’s basketball games this season and averaged 7.4 points, 3.5 rebounds and hit 43 percent (Big Shot Brad, hello…) of his 3-point attempts. His teammates call him ‘Juice’. Now you can too. C is for CAA Championships. VCU hoisted championship trophies in Men’s Basketball and Men’s Golf. You know who the sports information director both of those sports this year was? Yours truly. I’m just saying, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. E is for EMaynor.com. Immortalized (sort of) in a SI.com interview, the website tracked the progress of VCU’s favorite son, Eric Maynor. Sadly, like Maynor’s VCU career, emaynor.com’s run has come to an end. As of last week, the site was offline, and the domain name was available for purchase. F is for Megan Flanagan. A Second Team All-CAA pick, Flanagan scored five goals and nine assists for the women’s soccer team this year and finished as the program’s all-time assist leader (27). G is for Griffin, as in Lanto Griffin of the Rams’ men’s golf squad. Lanto, not to be confused with Lando Calrissian (Billydee! Billydee! Billydee!), was named the CAA’s Men’s Golfer of the Year. H is for Heather DelaCruz. A freshman out of Williamsburg, Va., DelaCruz was the women’s cross country team’s top runner in four of their six meets this season.
J is for Jorit Loehr. This season, Loehr led the men’s soccer team with five goals and 12 points. K is for Keyes. VCU Baseball Coach Paul Keyes picked up his 500th career win March 8 during the Rams’ doubleheader sweep of Fordham. Keyes, who recently completed his 15th season at VCU, is the winningest coach in the history of the program. Cue the “Keyes to Victory” puns. L is for Landlord, the nickname adopted by VCU Basketball’s own Plastic Man, Larry Sanders. Sanders’ performance in the CAA Championship game against George Mason will be remembered as one of the most dominant in league and school history. The 6-10 sophomore scored 18 points (also read, dunk, dunk, dunk, jumper, free throw, dunk, etc.), 20 rebounds and seven blocks. The 20 rebounds and seven blocks broke CAA Championship records held by David Robinson, some kid who went to Navy 20 years ago.
N is for NCAA bids. Men’s Basketball, Women’s Basketball, Women’s Tennis and Men’s Golf all danced this year. In addition, Men’s Track & Field athletes Piotr Dybas (steeplechase), Brian Wallace (long jump), Ronnie Black (high jump) and Antonio Novell Brandon Allen, Allan Moody and Kyle Jones (4x100-meter relay), as well as Vernice Johnson (long jump) on the women’s side, all recorded NCAA Regional qualifying marks. O is for OMG! Yeah, I know we sound like 14-year old girls texting our BFF, but work with it. OMG moments:
Q is for Q. Not ‘Q’ of James Bond lore, but ‘Q’ of VCU fame, which is short for Quanitra Hollingsworth. One could certainly argue that Hollingsworth was the most important player to come through any VCU athletic program, ever. She entered college at the age of 15, and after a redshirt year, became the youngest player in the country during the 2005-06 season. Along the way, she totaled 55 double-doubles, 24th in NCAA history, and became the first female Ram to collect 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds. This season, Hollingsworth led the Rams to their first NCAA Tournament appearance and was selected ninth overall in the WNBA Draft by the Minnesota Lynx. R is for Ronnie Black. Black, a freshman on the VCU Men’s Track and Field team, qualified for the NCAA Regionals in the high jump when he leaped 6-10 ¾ at the Duke Twilight meet May 3. Black also finished fourth in the high jump at the Penn Relays. S is for Shaka Smart. Smart was named the 10th head coach in the history of the VCU Men’s Basketball program April 2. T is for Thomas, as in Ian Thomas of the VCU baseball team. The senior port-sider was 4-4 with a 4.27 ERA in 11 starts this season and was named Third Team All-CAA. He is of no relation to Tim Thomas, Rob Thomas or Thomas’ English Muffins.
V is for van Dessel, as in field hockey twins Marle and Flore. (Mar-LAH and Flor-AH). Natives of Oisterwijk, Netherlands, the duo provided 13 of the Rams’ 25 goals and 13 of its 24 assists in 2008. I’m also accepting applications at this time for a linguist to help me pronounce Oisterwijk, as well as the name of Rosan van Eijkelenburg, one of the twins’ teammates.
X is for ‘X’ marks the spot for VCU Men’s Basketball and Joey Rodriguez. Behind Rodriguez, who led the CAA in 3-point percentage (.416), the Rams were the league’s top 3-point shooting (.369) team for the third time in four seasons. Y is for women’s tennis player Kateryna Yergina. Yergina, a sophomore out of Kiev, Ukraine, led the Rams to the NCAA Tournament for the fourth straight year after posting a 16-10 singles record. She was named First Team All-CAA. Z is for zero, which is the number of losses the VCU Women’s Basketball team suffered at home this season. The Rams finished a school-record 16-0 at the Siegel Center this season. |
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D is for Dykstra, as in Andrew Dykstra (right). A native of Woodbridge, Va., Dykstra passed on a football scholarship at Virginia Tech to play goalie for the VCU men’s soccer team. The 6-4, 205-pound keeper recorded 17 shutouts in four years, before signing a contract with Major League Soccer’s 
I is for Ivana Rich (left) of the VCU Volleyball team. Once a raw walk-on, Ivana Rich showed marked improvement every year and earned a spot on the All-CAA First Team this season as one of the league’s premier middle blockers. Plus, she’s much more affordable than 
M is for Maynor (right). It’s difficult to summarize the brilliance of Eric Maynor’s career in a couple of sentences, but calling him the best player in school history is probably a good start. Maynor, who set school records for points, assists, games played and heart-stopping moments, is a likely NBA first round draft pick Jun 25. 
P is for Pavarotti. Chris Crowley, VCU basketball’s former manager, turned horns-clad superfan delivered a career-defining performance Jan. 17 when he dressed up as Old Dominion Coach Blaine Taylor. I’m not saying he upstaged Brian Dennehy’s portrayal of Bobby Knight in 
U is for upset, which is what the VCU Men’s Tennis team did to North Carolina when it defeated the then-No. 19 Tarheels in an ITA National Indoor Qualifier Jan. 31. Despite that victory, the Rams were left out of the NCAA Tournament field, ending a run of 16 consecutive appearances. 
W is for Wyss, as in Jay. Jay Wyss (left) was the top Rams’ men’s cross country runner this season, finishing 12th at the CAA Championships. 
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