We have made it to Ferrum for the Annual meeting between Madison Stockner and Kalee Bunn ! Coach Edwards brought over 17 of our current Volleyball 🏐 players and we should have a fun evening….
More to come later…..
Set #1 went to the home 🏡 standing Panthers 25-22.
Set #2 goes to the visiting Royals 26-24 [7:05 pm]. Two evenly balanced teams to this point !
Set #3 lasted 33 minutes with Eastern Mennonite University finally closing it out, 28-26. As back and forth as it could be !
7:41 – Set #4 about to get underway… Ferrum up 19-15, trying hard to force a fifth and final game.
8:26 – Ferrum ends the night 🌙 with a 5-0 run 🏃♂️, winning 15-10.
The connection with West Virginia Tech University goes back to 2009 with the School, 2007 with the Coach. Skipper Lawrence Nesselrodt and I first met when we were both mainstays in the Valley Baseball ⚾️ League. Ness is the reason why I ended up owning a Baseball team for just over one year back in Waynesboro, Virginia.
When Ness left the Valley to take over the Baseball ⚾️ program the school was located in Montgomery, WV and we played our home games in a nearby village called East Bank.
The world 🌎 of N.A.I.A Baseball is a different animal and if you have never experienced it, explaining it would be really difficult. Our Athletic Director, Kevin DeHaven played at this level in College back in the day, if memory serves me right.
One thing that is easy to point to as different is just how fluid the schedule is and how hard folks work to get a game played. Second difference is the lack of funding by comparison to a NCAA Power 5 school.
A few years back, WVU-T was gobbled up by the folks in Morgantown, becoming part of the West Virginia University system. Another HUGE change came about when the School relocation took the Campus from Montgomery over to Beckley.
Beckley is New York City by comparison to Montgomery. Great location at the junction of Interstate 64 and 77 in the Mountains of West Virginia. The Golden Bears 🐻 currently play their Home games in a $3M dollar stadium 🏟 with a turfed Field that includes a jumbotron scoreboard (Linda K Epling Stadium) but its been an adventure every step of the way.
Every part of the program up here is an adventure and the people involved all have a lifetime connection to the game of Baseball ⚾️. My role here is whatever needs to be done on a given day, announcing if we are at Home to arranging meals on the road and everything in between.
Lawrence ” Big Picture ” Nesselrodt has a Top Shelf group of people around him, including the man I announce as the Legandery Joe Goddard. Everything about the goals within the Golden Bears 🐻 program is centered around ” Respect the Game” and “Leave it Better than you found it.”
Not sure what all we will attempt to tackle today because there is no off-season in Baseball.
Wednesday – Ferrum
. Thursday – Boone
Friday – Boone / Durham
Saturday – Miami, Florida
Sunday – Harrisonburg
Back home 🏡, Shawn Montgomery and his Cross Country teams will be competing over in the Martinsville area as they begin their end of the year meets. We look forward to sharing those results with you later.
The scoreboard will tell you that #1 Alleghany High School swept Carroll County 3-0 (25-15, 25-13, 25-19) in the Semi-final of the Three Rivers District Volleyball tournament Monday night.
Alleghany will now host James River High School on Wednesday night as the Cougars look to add the Tournament title to their regular season crown 👑.
In a season where the conversation has been about how young the Lady 👩 Cavaliers were, the team actually became even younger due to a trio of players being unavailable for various reasons.
Ali Wright, Corrie Delp and Alyssa Lawson were all not in the Gymnasium, for three different reasons. Veteran Head Coach Cindy Edwards filled the void by calling up three players from the Junior Varsity team. Brealeigh Love, Leigha Harrad and Katie Beasley made the trip up and over to AHS in the place of the missing players.
Carroll County (12-10, 7-5) was in for an uphill climb against a 21-3 team that has not lost in almost two months before the roster changes. The story went from David vs Goliath to one where David wasn’t allowed to use his stones.
The team was also having to play a veteran team in the least opponent friendly Gymnasium in the District. With all of the obstacles listed above, the Lady Cavaliers played hard enough to leave their Coach pleased.
” We came up here and had to face a good team with a great setter,” Edwards said. ” I wanted to play hard for me and they certainly did that tonight.”
The new line-up still had one more twist in that Faith Nicholson was tasked with playing the Libero position as Callie Harris slid over to fill the spot vacated by Wright. Add the fact that Sophomore had rolled her ankle earlier in the day.
In the opening set AHS raced out to a 6-0 lead but CCHS answered with 3 Kills and one Ace from Senior Aza Petty to cut the lead to 8-6. The next Cougar run was 10-3 but the Cavs tried to answer again. This time it was a Brooke Webb Kill and a Harris Ace that made it 18-12 but CCHS would not get any closer in the 25-15 setback.
The second set mirrored the first one as Alleghany jumped out to a 9-2 lead. Carroll County strung together a 4-0 run 🏃♂️ to pull within 17-12. Petty added a Kill and Maddie Hyatt a service Ace to give the team some hope.
AHS added an 8-1 closing run to their 9-2 opening run, closing out the set 25-13.
Down 2-0 and facing a long, long ride home, the Lady 👩 Cavaliers showed up in the third and final set in a big way. The crowd was getting louder and the Cougars were swinging harder but Carroll County did not flinch.
For the third straight set, Carroll County fell into a deep hole. Down 9-3, the teams played out the rest of the match at 16-16. Not only did they play it even, the points came from all over the court.
Petty swung away as she had all night. Harris tried to play a role that was a reach for her but managed well. Laiken Burnett was tasked with setting to a different group of players but didn’t slow down.
Nicholson added an Ace, Arizona Thompson a Kill as did Raylee Goins.
The team closed to within 24-19 after saving three set points before the Cougars sealed the deal, 25-19.
The loss does end the Three Rivers District portion of the post season but the Lady 👩 Cavaliers now turn their focus on the Class 3 Regional tournament. The team landed the #7 seed in the 10 team tournament and will host a play-in game on Saturday afternoon against the #10 seeded team.
A victory on Saturday will send Carroll County to the #2 seed at the beginning of next week.
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While it’s not typical for a Game story, the photo I selected is of the Families that committed six hours on a work day, including ones that didn’t have much advance notice that their Daughters were playing.
