Marty Gordon
The Virginia High School League has released its plan for district and regional realignment, but there is no real change in the area. The changes will take place in 2019.
Region D Class 3 of which Christiansburg is a member will now add Carroll County and William Byrd who will both drop down a classification. The region now includes the three plus Cave Spring, Abingdon, Hidden Valley, Lord Botetourt, Magna Vista, Northside, Staunton River and Tunstall high schools.
Alleghany, who remains in the Three Rivers District, will drop to Class 2 Region C for overall play along with Appomattox, Buckingham, Chatham, Dan River, Floyd, Ft. Chiswell, Giles, Glenvar, Gretna, James River, Nelson County, Martinsville, Patrick County and Radford.
Region C Class 1 remains unchanged with Auburn, Bath, Bland, Covington, Craig, Eastern Montgomery, Galax, Highland, Parry McCluer, Narrows, Rural Retreat and George Wythe.
Region D Class 4 will now add Halifax to the mix for a total of nine schools, which includes Amherst, Bassett, Blacksburg, E.C. Glass, Jefferson Forest, Pulaski, Salem and George Washington.
In district alignment, the River Ridge District will remain unchanged seven teams, while the recently formed Mt. Empire also does not see any changes. Rural Retreat will drop to Class1 but remain in the Hogoheegee District.
There is also no change in the Pioneer District, which includes Eastern Montgomery.
An additional meeting is scheduled for July 25 to discuss the re-alignment of the state’s upper two classification with final word expected by August.
A sad note in area recreation this week with the passing of Pulaski’s Eddie Sutphin who worked in recreation for close to 35 years. The 65-year-old lost a five-year battle with colon and liver cancer.
Last year, the New River Valley Recreation Association honored him at the sandlot football bowl. The championship game will now be named the Eddie Sutphin Super Bowl.
I personally had gotten to know him as an upbeat person despite everything he was going through. He was laid to rest Thursday afternoon.
Sutphin will be missed.
Just when Virginia Tech was riding a wave of receiver commits, one current player is leaving the school. Henri Murphy who has seen limited time at receiver and on special teams has announced he would transfer out of Blacksburg.
This weekend’s all-star soccer game: The Virginia Soccer Coaches Association has released the final rosters for the 2018 VSCA/VHSCA Senior Soccer Showcase and it includes several local players.
The event will be held June 29-30 at Lynchburg College.
Blacksburg’s Ashlen Burch and Sarah Linkenhoker will join Christiansburg’s Morgan Mullens and Grace Martin on the girls’ blue team. On the boys’ side of the field, Austin Bissell of Blacksburg will play with a group of talented players from the western part of the state.
The games will be staged in an “Red vs. Blue” format in both girls and boys games similar to past VHSCA East-West All-Star games typically held in Hampton.
Players have been selected from nominations by coaches in all six classifications of the public school VHSL as well as private VISAA school teams.
Both rosters are populated with some of the top male and female 2018 high school graduates from the state of Virginia, many of which will be moving on to the college ranks to continue their careers.
Both games will be played Saturday, June 30 at Lynchburg College Shellenberger Field with the girls’ game kicking off at 3:30 p.m. and the boys’ game to follow at 5:30 p.m. Tickets are $5.
Send sporting news and story ideas to NRVsports@ourvalley.org.
