doug.doughty@roanoke.com 981-3129

Joe Koshansky had a feeling that somebody from Virginia would walk away with one of the major awards Monday night at the ACC's annual baseball banquet.

Koshansky's intuition proved correct when the Cavaliers' first-year manager, Brian O'Connor, was named ACC coach of the year.

Koshansky was not as prepared for what came minutes later, the announcement that he had been chosen conference player of the year, a first for the Cavaliers in their 51 seasons of ACC play.

"Very surprised," said Koshansky, describing his emotions on an evening when he was named first-team All-ACC for the second year in a row. "In a conference like this, you've got a lot of great players."

Few of them could approach Koshansky's combination of skills. The 6-foot-4, 225-pound senior first baseman from Fairfax was also a starting pitcher in the final game of the Cavaliers' three-game weekend series.

Koshansky is third in the ACC in RBI (63) and fifth in home runs (15). He also ranks fourth in earned-run average (2.78) while posting a 7-2 record.

"Here's a guy who didn't play a tremendous amount in his first two seasons and then got into the weight room and made himself a player," O'Connor said. "It's a great story."

O'Connor wasn't a bad story himself. At 32, he took over a team that finished 29-25 in 2003 and was picked for seventh in the ACC this year, and he had the Cavaliers (42-11, 18-6) atop the conference for most of the season.

Koshansky was joined on the All-ACC first team by UVa third baseman Ryan Zimmerman. Virginia shortstop Mark Reynolds and pitcher Andrew Dobies were on the second team.

North Carolina pitcher Daniel Bard was named rookie of the year.