Following his breakout rookie season on the mound, Virginia Tech rising sophomore pitcher Brett Renfrow is one of 56 athletes who has been invited to partake in the 2024 USA Baseball Collegiate National Team Training Camp, as comprised this year of a two-game showcase series on June 26 and June 27 at the USA Baseball Training Complex in Cary, North Carolina.
Renfrow will represent Virginia Tech on the nation’s most premier stage for non-draft eligible college players, marking the third time spanning the past four summers during which the Hokies have produced national training camp participants. The native of Manassas, Virginia, joins the ranks of outfielder Gavin Cross (2021), pitcher Drue Hackenberg (2022) and outfielder Jack Hurley (2022) as the most recent Tech stars to don the red, white and blue during the Stars vs. Stripes series.
RC announces football schedule
The Roanoke College football team announced its 2024 schedule on Tuesday, with five games on the docket for the school’s first season of competition since 1942.
The team is considered a club sport this fall, with the program joining the Division III and the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) ranks in 2025. All five games this autumn will be held on Sundays, every other week.
The season opens with a home contest September 8 against the Hampden-Sydney College junior varsity team. The Maroons then travel to face the Shenandoah University (Sept. 22) and Bridgewater College (Oct. 6) JV teams. Fork Union Military Academy comes to Salem on October 20 and the season concludes November 3 at home against George Mason University’s club team. The home games are set for 2 p.m. with the road contests to be determined.
Salem Stadium, already the home of Salem High School’s will serve as the Maroons home field.
Strong amongst nation’s best
Virginia Tech football is set to benefit from the return of several key contributors on the defensive end heading into the 2024 season, a crucial factor after the Hokies secured the No. 20 spot in the NCAA’s total defense rankings. Among the standout players is cornerback Dorian Strong, who is returning for his fifth year. Strong received notable accolades in 2023, including Action Network Second Team All-American and All-ACC Third Team honors. The Upper Marlboro, Maryland native tallied 25 tackles including 18 solo, registered eight pass breakups in 11 passes defended and recorded three interceptions. Remarkably, he is the second FBS cornerback since 2014 to have played 300+ coverage snaps while allowing fewer than 10 receptions and less than 100 yards receiving in a season. Strong’s impressive performance in the 2023 season has earned him a spot on Pro Football Focus’ (PFF) top 10 returning cornerbacks for 2024, ranking eighth.
Tech raises the bar
Virginia Tech Athletics continued to display impressive results in the NCAA’s latest Academic Progress Rate Institutional Report, which was released Tuesday afternoon by the NCAA. Led by women’s golf’s perfect multiyear rate of 1,000, 18 Hokie programs posted at least a 970. A total of nine teams had a perfect APR for the 2022-23 academic year.
The APR provides a real-time look at a team’s academic success by tracking the academic progress of each student-athlete during the school year. The APR accounts for eligibility, retention and graduation in the calculation and provides a measure of each team’s academic performance.
Teams must meet a certain academic threshold to qualify for the postseason, and programs also can face penalties for continued low academic performance. The most recent APRs are multiyear rates based on annual scores from the 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23 academic years.
Staff report
