Marty Gordon
Typically, the Memorial Day weekend is the start of the summer season with many people hitting the water. Two Radford University students are excited to a part of the action.
Matthew Cooley of Chesterfield and Zack Lempster of Bedford are on the Red River in Louisiana this week for the YETI FLW College Fishing national championships.
The team qualified for the national tournament by placing in a regional event in April.
The RU duo is among 106 collegiate teams competing for the title and a new Ranger boat. The event will be television at a later date.
Congratulations to Kevin Angstadt from Radford who continued his hot streak last week on the competitive shooting tour. He won both regional and state matches in Michigan with perfect scores. He then finished third in the world championships and his competition team took home top honors.
As a team, they finished first in Industry division of the Bianchi Cup and second overall. Individually, Angstadt was 13th in the Bianchi individual standings.
To follow up on my story of Liberty University leaving the Big South Conference, some individuals have asked me who still remains as members of the athletic conference.
The Big South makeup includes: Radford University, Campbell, Charleston Southern, Gardner-Webb, High Point, Longwood, Presbyterian, UNC-Asheville, Winthrop, Kennesaw State (football only), North Alabama (football only) and USC Upstate (football only). Hampton and USC Upstate will join as fulltime members of the conference in the fall.
The bottom line is that Radford needs to seek membership somewhere else like the Southern Conference. The Highlander program would be a great choice for the Southern and join VMI and Wofford as common rivals.
As Virginia Tech looks for a new softball coach, I don’t think they should look too far. Liberty’s Dot Richardson would be an excellent choice as she has led the Lynchburg school to the NCAA tournament in back to back seasons.
We need to take a moment and remember the Charlotte high school basketball recruit, James Hampton, who passed away during a game Saturday in Hampton.
He fell to the hardwood and was unresponsive. CPR was performed, and he died a short time later at a local hospital.
The 6-5 shooting guard attended a private academy in Charlotte, and his recruitment had started to heat up in the past few months.
While NASCAR-racing is not happening this season a Motor Mile Speedway this season, the Radford track is still seeing a lot of action. On June 9, the track will host “Mayhem at the Mile” demolition derby.
Also, on June 30, the Monster trucks will be back at the track.
Also, congrats to two of our firefighters. Jeremy Williams and Josh Spradlin brought home the corn hole trophy during the state Firefighter’s Conference in Virginia Beach.