The VBL’s Scott Musa still has so more baseball to take care of before turning his attention over to the Valley Baseball League. Musa is the Sports Information Director for Shenandoah U. in Winchester and tonight they earned their ticket to the D-III World Series.

     The team swept through the double elimination tourney held in Salisbury, Maryland. The #2 seed defeated John Hopkins 8-2 in the opener and then York, PA 11-2 in the second round.

   The next step came when the Hornets defeated fellow Virginia school Christopher Newport University 8-4. The ticket was punched when SU rallied late to defeat John Hopkins 11-7 in the Finals. Hopkins had jumped out to an early 7-4 lead in the fifth inning but SU rallied late for the “W”.

    Congrats to the Hornets for earning a trip to the World Series in their first ever apperance in the tournament!

   You can read all about the team in the Monday edition of the Northern Virginia Daily at www.nvdaily.com or at the teams website www.suhornets.com/sports .

    The roster is filled with players from our Valley including Greg Van Sickler (James Wood), Kyle Smallwood (Sherando), Billy Koelker (Sherando), Jesse Henry (Warren County), Ryan Reid (Sherando), Josh Santos(Quicksburg), Brandon Ewing (James Wood), Jon Nicholson (Warren County) and Kyle Gladu (Millbrook).

    Head Coach Kevin Anderson is not only connected to the VBL but our  Valleyas well. Anderson coached for five years at Warren County High School as well as stints with both the Winchester Royals and the New Market Rebels. Anderson took over the program in July 2003. The team will take a mark of 37-8 to Appleton next week.

   The Series will be played from May 22ND (Friday) thru May 26TH (Tuesday) at Time Warner Field @ Fox Cities Stadium in Grand Chute, Wisconsin. Trinity College finished the 2008 Series as National Champions with a mark of 45-1.

   The schedule for the first day should have SU playing at 4:30 P.M. (CST) against the winner of the Farmington, New York region. That game will be labled game #3 and the winner will play the next night at 7:45 P.M. in game 8 while the losing team will play again at 1:15 P.M. in Game 6. More info on the tourney can be found at http://www.titans.uwosh.edu/NCAAChampionship/2009/ .

      People talk about the first week-end of the NCAA Basketball tournament being as good as it gets for Sports but for folks like me ,who favor local High School athletes giving their all, today is the day of days. The opening day of Spring Sports District play is Mad Crazy.

     Varsity action in Baseball, Soccer, Softball, Tennis and Track gives you so many choices that it can be fun just deciding where to go for your action that night. There is usually a gap between Class A & Class AA District play in our Area but with the weather that was not the case this year.

    Bill Meade covers Luray & Page County High Schools and tonight he had 8 separate events that warranted coverage. But Bill is a One Man Band so you can imagine just how hard he had it tonight. His number would of been even higher but Luray’s baseball team and Page’s softball team drew a bye.

   Our friends down at The News Virginian (Sisk & Sacco) had 12 events that needed coverage and they had 3 folks to try and accomplish the feat. Shenandoah Valley Herald’s John Galle had all of Stonewall Jackson (except Boys soccer) in action as well as Central. John caught a break that Strasburg and the Bull Run are waiting until Monday.

   Then there was Chuck, TK & Jeremy up at the Northern Virginian Daily. Now they did have a touch of help from a Cast of Characters but still you have to applaud the effort of 10 gamers and 1 set of Round-Ups. I believe that young Mr. Stafford was still up in Salisbury covering the great run of Shenandoah University in the D-III baseball tournament but Chuck tells me that Jeremy had 2 of the 10 gamers.

     The funny thing about the Newspaper business is that while Newspapers have to report on the economy and all of the companies that are struggling to stay out of bankruptcy, they can’t report on the issues facing their own industries. Take it from someone that has spent their entire life in the business through Circulation & Sports, this is a tough time for our industry right now. Everyone I mentioned above has been effected by the Crunch but for a Night they all put their Noses to the Grindstone and the end result should be a bunch of smiling faces tomorrow morning.

     Sad part is that even with all of the Hard Work, no one was able to get to EVERY event. Here is to hoping that the focus can be on the games that were covered. If your team, your son or your daughter played in one of the remaining games not covered, feel free to send me the info and we will list it here.

     Tonight a Tip of the Cap goes to each of the Sports Editors listed above as well as one Extra Wink to the fellas from Strasburg. Nice Work…

Check them out @ www.nvdaily.com and www.newsvirginian.com