The coverage for the Saturday Swim 🏊♂️ Meet is now complete and I encourage anyone interested to go back one post 📫 and check it out!
Please note the 6pm start time for the Basketball 🏀 tonight over in Independence.
Our Varsity swim 🏊♂️ teams competed yesterday in Christiansburg and we are going to combine a number of sources and perspectives into one impressive collection and maybe someone can take the finished product and share it on Facebook. This will take a while because of the number of folks involved so I encourage folks to check back until I add the word FINAL up in the banner.
Early Thank You 🙏 to the following folks – Shannon Dalton, Kevin DeHaven and Marion Harris. Let’s get started and see where it takes us.
To further appreciate the chart above just use the two finger routine to enlarge it. When you do you will see that our Boys 👦 placed fourth overall in a field of 23 teams.
Much more to come once I can collect it all and get it one spot !
Coach showing her appreciation for her teams efforts 👏
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1H3hHSOb_twiiWm4D_sH6IRdskBYRayAT
The above link takes you to a Google Drive which is loaded with more results and a set of photos 📷 from the meet.
The itemized list of the complete results is 33 pages long. The link to the list is part of the Google Drive, upper left corner.
This part of the link is ultra important to us here because we like to show appreciation for ALL of our Student Athletes, not just the ones at the top of the list.
****** Still more to come
Plus ➕
Seeing the Day through the eyes of a Proud Parent 💘 :Shannon Dalton
It was an exciting start for the Cavalier swimmers at the Southwest Virginia High School Invitational this Saturday. The event included 32 teams and more than 300 swimmers. Last year, the men took 10th place in points at the meet. The jump to 4th highlights the depth of the bench on the men’s team, which graduated lead swimmer Nicholas Perkins and solid wing-man Jon McGrady.
Sophomores Bradley Dalton and Wyatt Ogle led the men, with juniors Ethan Richardson and Ethan Edwards not far behind.
Dalton trains with the Austin Wood & Emily Goad (a former CWC Tiger Shark) Mt. Airy branch of STAR Aquatics, NC and tends to shoulder the distance events for the team. He faced a stacked 200 IM slate, with 9 swimmers earning USA Swim BB times – the top 2 in the event at A motivational times. The winner, Caleb Hagadorn (Hidden Valley), made the cut time for an automatic pass to state at 2:01.83. Dalton had a personal best 2:18.85, dropping over two seconds from his last round with 200 IM at the SC Rays Harvest Festival Invite in November. In the 500 Free, he held within 3 seconds of his personal best, and brought home a 4th place finish. Dalton was second in the event at the VHSL Region Championship last year and 15th in finals at state.
Wyatt Ogle had an impressive day, putting down a 24.65 (0.3ish shy of an A USA Swim time) in the 50 Free, landing him in 5th place on the day. Ogle has a strong freestyle sprint and he switches easily between the 50 and 100 Free events (he swam 100 at State last year). His bread and butter is the backstroke event, where he swam the 100 back at 1:04.88 for an 8th place finish. Ogle also faced stiff competition in backstroke, with three swimmers going sub-minute and the top two (including another automatic pass for Hagadorn) earring times fast enough to make the class 3 state cut.
Literally right on his heels in 50 Free was Ethan Richardson who swam a 24.92, only 0.27 seconds behind Ogle. Richardson (who holds all but one summer Tiger Shark men’s record for 50 free) swam 24.96 at his appearance in the event at state, so he’s on par with his personal best at the start of the season. Richardson qualified for finals in 100 Free at state last year with a time of 57.57 and he came in at 57.78 this weekend for 9th place. Perhaps Richardson’s most impressive swim of the day was his freestyle anchor leg in the 200 Medley Relay when he chased down the Beckett Linn of Science Hill, who went into the pool with a body length lead, and bested to take the 4th place finish by 0.89 seconds (the CCHS relay at 1:55.70 – 0.52 out of 3rd against Hidden Valley who we will see again in regions).
Ethan Edwards, fresh off his cross country season, was in the pool for the mid-distance 200 Free event. Edwards also swam this event at state last year and ranked 8th at 2:17.91 in a field that included four swimmers that went sub-minute and a top three at A motivational times. Edwards pulled in the last point scoring place at 12th in 100 Fly with a time of 1:05.57. Edwards ended last season in this event at regions with a 1:10.28 and his improvement in the stroke is certain to continue. Edwards is new to the medley relay team, replacing Perkins. Ogle, Edwards, Dalton, and Richardson came in at at time less than 3 seconds off their state time last year with Perkins on the fly leg.
These same four also took on the 400 Free relay (a change from the 200 free last season) and finished 4th. With four swimmers routinely swimming sub-minute 100 free legs, they should be a strong contender in this event for the season.
And it should be mentioned that the future of Carroll swimming includes (hopefully) the siblings of all four – Will Dalton and Emmett Edwards (7th graders – Will also swims with STAR Aquatics, recently dropping almost 26 seconds on his 200 Free; Emmett a promising backstroker for the Tiger Sharks), Paige Ogle (6th grade and fresh off of a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd against the Galax High School girls in a recent scrimmage), and Gracie Richardson (an elementary school powerhouse with a conference title in 25 Backstroke and a 2nd place conference win in 25 Free this summer).
Here’s a game recap curtosey of the Bristol newspaper 📰
Congratulations to our County neighbors !
Right now 13 distinguished folks are locked into a (pretty top shelf) board room. For the first time under the current model the NCAA selection committee is staring at seven legitimate teams eying four spots in the upcoming playoffs.
Wouldn’t want to have that level of responsibility, not even a little.
Michigan and Washington are an absolute lock 🔐 but from there it gets interesting.
Undefeated Florida State (13-0) is wounded at the Quarterback position and four quality teams nipping at their heels.
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*** Editor Note – Duke had FSU down late in the game in Tallahassee!
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One loss Texas has a victory over Alabama plus a Big 12 Championship.
Alabama has just the loss in Week 2 at home vs the Longhorns and just defeated the #1 team in the Country
Georgia had won 29 consecutive games including the last two Nattys.
Ohio State wants to make a case but this one lost team had just two quality wins in Penn State and Notre Dame.
The fun starts at Noon and lasts until 4pm. Nine different Bowl 🥣 projections have been read this morning 🌄 and some have both of the S.E.C. teams being on the outside looking 👀 in which while that might make it more believable for the Huskies to reach Houston for the title game it wouldn’t be as fun without Nick Saban & the Dawgs.
Things to do between now and Noon include a Sermon and Swim 🏊♂️ coverage so enough College Football for now.
Congratulations 👏👏👏 to Galax and Best of Luck next week !
By : Homer McHomerson
Martinsville, Virginia – The genuis that is Carroll County High School Girls Basketball Coach Marc Motley was on full display Saturday evening in his team’s 55-45 victory over a tenacious Carlisle squad on the campus of Patrick Henry Community College.
Having already captured two State Championships and having an extordanaty talent in Senior Alyssa Ervin back for one Last Dance, the 2023-2024 season simply has to be one of all-in for the team.
The balance of the team has a talented group of young ladies who need time to adjust to their new roles. Fellow Seniors Madison Lyons, Katie Lam and Sarah Alderman have to grow from supporting cast to Senior leaders while Callie Harris, Corrie Delp, Laiken Burnett and Kacie Young have to learn their roles.
Motley is quite possibly even a better navigator for his program than a coach. The veteran works the sidelines as well as anyone coaching at the High School level but the effort off the court deserves a great deal of credit.
The Three Rivers District will hold one new challenge as Alleghany has already shown the effects of merging with Covington High School. Doubling down on your pool of Student Athletes already paid dividends for both the football program and volleyball program so there’s no reason to question if the team now called the Cougars will be able to challenge the Lady Cavaliers. Floyd County plays without fear against CCHS but can’t match the talent.
Knowing that the quickest path to getting his players adjusted to what he needs from them is finding the best game and opponent that is available. Last season the Non-District schedule was over the top and it showed when the post season rolled around.
The first opportunity to apply pressure on his team came against a Chiefs team that is possibly as fast as anyone the Cavaliers will face during the regular season. They are well coached and overly aggressive on both ends of the floor. Their guards can release a 3-pointer in the blink of an eye and their Center works hard on every possession.
The one thing worth noting about the contest Saturday that was different from the three Saturday games last season was this one was played in front of a large number of visiting fans.
Carlisle used all of their tools mentioned above to race out to a 10-1 lead and even worse, starting Center Lyons picked up two quick fouls.
Not sure how many times in the past four seasons Carroll County found themselves on the wrong end of a 10-1 score. Two things happened that turned things around for Carroll County that allowed them to take their first lead at 19-18 on their way to a 30-21 halftime lead.
Ervin poured in 16 points in the second quarter alone and at the break she was leading the Chiefs 22-21. Every opponent will have their own strategy for how to guard Ervin. Last night Pulaski County played a brand of defense that sent the Senior to the free throw line 19 times.
Carlisle chose to play her clean, occasionally double teaming her but only having Ervin attempt eight free throws on her way to scoring a game high 36 points.
The second game changer was the play of Casey Young. Lyons is at her best when she can play freely and without fear of serious foul trouble. Young, while not netting a single basket and eventually fouling out completely changed the flow of the game by battling a veteran player in a toe to toe manner.
The Chiefs outscored CCHS 15-14 in the third quarter to cut the lead down to eight but the 3-pointers stopped falling and the Cavaliers were matching the aggressive effort for every rebound and loose ball to hold their hosts at bay.
Lam joined Ervin in double figures with 11 points with nine of them coming after the break. Delp continues to grow into her role as the fifth starter with the four seniors, finishing the contest with six points. Lyons accounted for the final two points.
Carroll County (2-0) returns to action Tuesday night at Honaker. The game was originally scheduled to be played in Hillsville but the home and home games were swapped to set up a Championship ring ceremony later this month.
Carroll County… 8 22 14 11 – 55
Carlisle High ….12 9 15 9 – 45
3-Pointers – Ervin 4
The rain 🌧 and fog 🌁 on the way back from Martinsville was further compounded by 10 miles behind a semi 🚛 truck…..
Game Story on the Girls 👧 Basketball 🏀 to start shortly…. have fun in the meantime trying to figure out who’s playing the Grinch ???
