In most school years, Virginia doesn’t have to wait until April 21 for its first ACC championship.

In 2002, UVa athletics officials set a goal of winning 70 ACC championships in 10 years. In the four succeeding years, the Cavaliers have won 20 conference titles.

An average of five ACC titles per year is short of the stated goal but respectable. Yet before last weekend, UVa teams were 0-for-13 in 2006-07.

By the end of the weekend, four more Virginia teams saw their ACC championship hopes vanish, but, fittingly enough, the drought ended Saturday morning in the waters of Clemson’s Lake Hartwell.

It was the eighth straight ACC women’s rowing championship for the Cavaliers, who have won every ACC rowing title.

“I didn’t know that it was Virginia’s first ACC championship of the year,” rowing coach Kevin Sauer said. “Men’s tennis won, too, but I guess we beat ’em by 24 hours.”

It was the third straight ACC title for the men’s tennis team, which had a 5-0 lead on North Carolina when play was halted Sunday with two singles matches still under way.

“I follow all the [UVa] sports pretty closely,” tennis coach Brian Boland said, “but I didn’t know there hadn’t been a championship until this weekend. That surprises me.”

Virginia hasn’t gone without an ACC championship since 1987-88, and the last time the Cavaliers waited until the spring for a title was 1997, when men’s lacrosse broke the drought.

Starting in 1999, Virginia won eight straight ACC men’s swimming and diving championships, a streak that ended this year.

Championships are still to be awarded in men’s lacrosse, women’s lacrosse, baseball and softball. Virginia has been among the ACC regular-season leaders in the first three sports but the softball team has a 1-17 record in conference games.

Women’s rowing and men’s tennis seemed to be Virginia’s best bets for ACC championships this year and should advance far in the NCAA postseason.

The women’s rowing team finished second at the Division I championship as recently as 2005 but did not receive an NCAA bid last year despite winning the ACC championship.

“In some ways, it was a good thing,” Sauer said.

Of the 90 schools that sponsor a Division I women’s rowing team, only 12 are invited to the NCAA meet. That number will rise to 16 in coming years. For now, there are no automatic qualifiers.

On May 12-13, the Cavaliers return to Oak Ridge, Tenn., where they finished seventh last year in the South/Central Championships. They can’t afford to finish seventh again.

“We just didn’t perform well,” Sauer said. “It really comes down to what you do at the end of the year. It’s not like basketball, where a win over Arizona in the opening game comes in handy at selection time.”

Sauer is beginning to reap the rewards of the runner-up showing at the 2005 NCAAs. The women he signed the following fall and spring are now freshmen; five are among the 16 rowers on the top three boats and eight more are on an undefeated novice boat.

Recruiting also is a major factor in the success of the Virginia men’s tennis team, which lost six seniors from last year’s ACC championship team, including four All-Americans.

The team that ripped through North Carolina on Sunday has three freshmen and a transfer among its first seven players.

Tulane transfer Teddy Angelinos, a junior from Athens, Greece, was named ACC tournament MVP after going undefeated at No. 6 singles, losing six points in three matches.

One of the freshmen, Houston Barrick, spent the fall semester in high school in Brentwood, Tenn., before UVa made a rare exception and allowed him to enroll for the second semester.

“I think we’re starting to play our best tennis now, which is certainly the way we wanted it to be,” said Boland, whose team has lost in the NCAA quarterfinals in each of the past two seasons, falling to No. 1 Georgia last year.

Virginia (26-3) has won 12 consecutive matches since suffering road setbacks to No. 5 Baylor and No. 12 Texas on back-to-back days in March.

“Every single year, my goal is to have our team in a position to contend for an ACC and national championship,” Boland said.

“If we stay focused, I think we can go all the way.”

He’s not putting any less pressure on Sauer.

“Kevin just wrote me a note,” Boland said. “He does an unbelievable job. They have a chance to win a national championship, but I couldn’t help teasing. I tell him, with any coaching, they’ll get it done.”

After last weekend, all ribbing is good-natured.