Today is the day that the Boys Basketball 🏀 Bruins make their way to town, and they’re not coming alone. Legendary Virginia Tech football Coach and Carroll County born and raised Frank Beamer will be in the Gymnasium on the Hill as he joins the Carroll County High School Wall of Fame.

Over the history of sports a few athletes have been given a level of credit far beyond meer mortals.

Yankee Stadium was the House that Ruth built.

Safeco Field, the House Ken Griffey Junior built.

Lucas Oil Stadium, the House that Peyton Manning built.

Yes, for tonight let’s call Carroll County High School the House that Frank Beamer built!

Beamer roamed the halls and ruled the playing fields at Hillsville High School which was the institute of higher learning prior to 1969 when Carroll County High School opened its doors.

Beamer has always been credited with remembering where he came from and is still known to many as Fancy Gap Frank. The Coaches Mother remained in the County until her recent passing.

In a story from last year that appeared in the Carroll News the former Coach mentioned that he spends a great deal of time on I-77, the road that splits the County in half, running back and forth between Blacksburg and Columbia, South Carolina.

Shane Beamer has taken over the Family Business as he just completed his second season as the Head Coach of the Gamecocks after playing for his Father from 1995 to 1999.

Frank went 280-147 over his 29 seasons as the Head Hokie and along with long time DC Bud Foster created a lunch pale mentality and an identity known as Beamer Ball. Shane has added 15 victories to the Family total pushing that number up to 295 and counting.

Beamer was a 3 sport athlete but it was his skills as a Quarterback and Cornerback that landed him a scholarship to Virginia Tech and the rest is history. A long and rich history that an entire County will get to show its appreciation for one more time tonight. For tonight I will refer to the building as the House Frank Beamer built !

Photo credit – 2006 from Wikipedia

This young Lady 👩 and her daughter might be wearing Floyd County colors but all of us in Laurel Fork in general and Olde Mill in particular know just how joy she brings to anyone who crosses her path.

We have just broken down the 10 game slate the Lady Cavaliers faced in the Three Rivers District so now its time to breakdown the other 12 games.

Let’s set aside three of those 12 games right off the top. Blacksburg (61-40) finished at 11-11 and Roanoke Catholic (62-22, 73-19) sits at 8-10.

The other 9 games which CCHS played to an 8-1 mark include the following –

Two wins over Pulaski County (74-58, 66-40), a team that also swept its league on its way to an 18-3 record. That’s 18-1 against teams not Coached by Mark Motley.

Magna Vista (56-19) currently sits at 17-5 and is looking forward to the post season.

Spotswood (67-34) sits at 17-3 and could cross paths with Carroll County here in a month or so.

Lynchburg Christian Academy (65-31) has a mark of 14-5.

Then you take a look at the four times the Cavaliers crossed State Lines to face an opponent.

Salisbury, North Carolina (55-40) sits at 18-3

Wren, South Carolina (52-34) sits at in impressive 21-4.

Barren County, Kentucky (60-43) is 18-4

That brings us to Hebron Christian Academy down in Georgia, the only team that defeated our Cavaliers this season (45-75). They are currently sitting at 23-0 and ranked in the USA Today Girls National Poll.

Sometimes when you defeat a team early on its hard to appreciate the size of the victory. The sweep of Pulaski County and the recent smotherings of Salisbury, Spotswood and Lynchburg Christian Academy shine even brighter when you realize their combined record is 85-17.

The 3 teams we faced down in Tennessee come in at 62-8. Overall record of the teams played outside of their District…..191-62

The next story to chase is how did this group of young Ladies get to this level ?

Looking for s starting place to recap the just completed regular season of the 21-1 Lady Cavaliers, the District portion of their schedule seemed like a natural place to begin the examination.

10 games played and 10 games won is impressive on its own. But when you take a closer look at the numbers.

Glenvar scored 33 points on the Cavaliers in the first of the 10 contests and nobody reached that score again. The average points allowed in District play was 21.9 in a 32 minute contest. The team defense only allowed 30.82 points per game across the 22 game schedule.

Now that we know that 33 points were the most points scored against CCHS, the next question would be what was the closest game that the Cavaliers played ?

Alleghany played the CAVS to a score of 55-25 a couple of weeks back in Low Moor and the 30 point margin was the smallest in the 10 games. The final District contest played on Friday night 🌙 at Floyd County was a 35 point victory and it was the only other time a team stayed within 43 points of CCHS in District play.

Floyd County High School has the second best team in the District by a wide margin and they fell to CCHS twice by an average margin of 40.5 points.

The final set of numbers come in at 683-219 which is easy math divided by 10 games, 68.3-21.9. When you add in the number of minutes that the starting five played in any of the fourth quarters, it shows the kindness involved with the sweep of the 10 contests.

There are no guarantees as to how the next few weeks will play out for this group as they set out to try and defend their State Championship but we do have the time to acknowledge the success that they’ve had up to this point.

Today’s contest against Lynchburg Christian Academy capped off a remarkable regular season for the Defending State Champion Carroll County Cavaliers. We have a few days (possibly 2 full weeks+) until our Ladies will lace up their sneakers 👟 for a Regional Quarterfinal.

I can recreate the path every step of the way minus the 3 Day trip to Tennessee being I wasn’t around for those 3 contests. Each game over the past few weeks have been impressive showings so it made me wonder what would happen if we took a look at the regular season as a whole.

From the beginning of the season it has felt that it might be Repeat or Bust air about the team and that just shouldn’t be the case. The just completed regular season has been one for the ages and should be Celebrated as such. We can treat the next two weeks just like the current state of the National Football League – two full weeks in between the Conference Championship game and the Super Bowl 🏈.

The schedule has created a long gap between games for the team so let Coach Motley work on keeping his unit locked 🔒 in and the rest of us take the time to process the season we have been treated too. I will get started breaking down the numbers shortly and see what we find out?