Time-line Blog for an interesting Day / Night 🌙 of Hoops (5) and Volleyball 🏐 (1). Let’s see 👀 how much fun there is to be had ????? – FINAL at 3:04 am….

3 College Basketball 🏀 games, 2 Middle School🏫 Basketball games and 1 Regional tournament Volleyball 🏐 match. Furman, South Carolina + Paris France 🇫🇷 + Abingdon, Virginia and Christiansburg, Virginia.

That takes care of the Where’s…

Who’s : Kris Richardson, Alyssa Ervin, Kira Lawson, Cindy Edwards, Darian Brown and the California Golden Bears 🐻.

When : 6pm here in France 🇫🇷 / Noon EST

4:30 + 6:00 in Christiansburg for the Middle School games.

6:00 – Carroll County Volleyball 🏐 at Abingdon versus the Falcons

7:00 – Furman University Basketball 🏀 with Alyssa Ervin.

Worth noting that Cal – Vanderbilt is just bonus Hoops as its Game 2 of the double header.

This post 📫 will keep me informed about what all I need to provide Mr Broyles for the Newspaper 📰 next week. At the same time it can keep people posted on the games.

It will be what I call a ” Running 🏃‍♂️ Post, one that will be added to for the rest of the day.

Game #1 will be Courtside with Kira and the Lady Blue Devils !

Will be back shortly….

L’Arch de Triumphe

Duke leads 17-15 after the opening 10 minutes. Technical difficulties in that the 3 scoreboards aren’t working. Short term answer, they are using the ESPN feed.

It’s working now but score isn’t correct on it.

Duke 33-29 @ The half…

43 – 43 , after 3rd quarter…

Baylor 6-0 run in opening 90 seconds, timeout Duke…

6:07 left when Duke scores, down 4 now.

4:58 – Final media TO…. down 49-45…

2:16 – Baylor TO, Bears 🐻 lead 52-48

Taliah Scott = Beast Mode for Baylor here in the fourth. 5’9 guard 💂‍♂️ has 10+ of the 13 in the frame.

Down 4, 0:51.5

Too much Scott and too much Baylor University DEFENSE down the stretch. Loose balls played a roll but credit to Baylor, 58-52 at 0:07.3

Final, first of 6 on the Day..

California Golden Bears on the court for Game #2 – 2:15 pm back 🏡…

8:40 / 2:40 pm :

California 18, Vanderbilt 18 at the end of the first quarter.

California 33-31 @ Halftime

55-42 Vanderbilt after 3rd quarter….

Beth Bouldin is in the House up in Christiansburg for the start of the Boys Middle School game,

CCMS Boy’s basketball warmups underway in Christiansburg. Tip-off at 4:30pm. Let’s go Cavs! 💙🩶🤍

Vanderbilt wins 74 – 65, wrapping up Games 1 & 2 ,of 6 today. Now its Beth Bouldin and the Middle School Boys 👦.

No Cheerleaders today for CCMS due to it being a road game.

18–0 end of the first quarter, Christiansburg in the lead, showing their discipline. Cavaliers fighting hard!

Grant Reed gets the Cavs on the board with a hard fought 2!

At the Half –

Gibson Barr with another basket gives the Cavs a total of 4 at the half. Christiansburg holding strong at 35-4.

Meanwhile, countdown clock ⏰ is running down in Abingdon.

Alyssa Ervin will start her game at 1am local time here….

Kris Richardson has his Lady 👩 Cavaliers in the building at Christiansburg. They will start shortly..

Update from the Boys 👦 game, 50-9, end of the third quarter.

End of the 3rd quarter has the score 50-9, both teams rotating in new players after a fast paced first half. Gibson adding to the score and Remington Millaway getting in on the action too. – From Beth

So far, both Duke University and the California Golden Bears have come up on the wrong side of the scoreboard. Next final had the Middle School Boys falling short

Final for the boys, 56-11, with Gibson adding in the last basket for the Cavs. Fast paced and competitive game, the heart of the blue was shining tonight! 💙🩶🤍 – Thank You 🙏 Beth @ 11:27 / 5:27

Winning is more fun than not but nothing takes away from getting to support the people who you care about.

” 5th quarter game goes to Christiansburg but not without a little spark from the Cavs! 15-13″

💙🩶🤍

Now halfway through the unique day.

Still 2 follow – Kris Richardson, Cindy Edwards and Alyssa Ervin…

Beth Bouldin Photo 📷, 20:00 on the clock ⏰ for warm-ups

Lady Cavaliers take the court for warmup! Let’s go Ladies!
💙🩶🤍

Team Captains and Coaches, girls tip-off in 5:26 minutes!!

12:23 am updates :

Abingdon hangs on for 25-23 set 1 victory

“End of the first quarter, Lady Cavs holding their own, just 2 points down from the top.
9-7 Lady Blue Demons in the lead. Keep the hustle ladies!”
💙🩶🤍

Halftime score from Beth, 13-13

Volleyball 🏐 – Abingdon takes set #2, 25-10

12:48 am now / 6:48 back 🏡

1:04 am – Final from Abingdon…Falcons close out Lady Cavaliers 3-0 (23,10,10).

Full story later.

3:06 left in the 4th, Lady Cavs still scrapping! Game doesn’t stop until the 00:00 lights up. 29-16, Lady Blue Demons leading the way.

1:20 am :

End of regulation game, Lady Blue Demons have the W, Lady Cavs did some hustling.
43-16 final.

5th quarter game happening now.

Still time for a quick nap before heading to the Airport….

Furman University 24-4 after 1st quarter.

One more from Beth Bouldin, who was kind enough to do double duty tonight !

5th quarter final score 8-5, Lady Blue Demons claim both wins tonight.

Great hustle from all!

Safe travels home Cavaliers. Rest up & prep up, both CCMS Basketball teams back in action Wednesday 5:30pm @home against the Fort Chiswell Pioneers. Boys play first.

💙🏀🩶🏀🤍

Snuck in my 1 + of sleep 💤

Alyssa adds one more basket 🧺, now with 13 points on 6 of 7 shooting…

3:04 am – it’s Final now

Time to get dressed and head back to the Paris Airport. Flight ✈️ #1 is a hop over to London, then a 9 hour flight ✈️ back to Charlotte.

These notes 📝 will translate into stories later today…

Welcome 🙏 to a November to Remember and we start out with a thought about David Broyles and Marion Harris to get things started ! Saturday’s Morning 🌄 Brew

The official School 🏫 calender is blank.

Travis Osborne with his Bible Verse of the Day :

1 Peter 5:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

As we flip the calendar 📅 to November, it’s time to tweak the mission a bit but Thanks to Marion Harris we closed things out in style !

The goal for the past year was to create a ” Happy Place ” that would allow a person in Carroll County to wake ⏰ up and spend a few minutes reading about all the Awesome stuff that took place the day before in Carroll County.

No advertising, no bullying, no negativity – just positive stories about Cavalier comings and goings. Not just the Athletics but the pageantry as well as the Academics.

The past five days have been a blast because things actually worked out like they had been designed, with thousands of people checking in and enjoying the content. That was Marion being Marion and I wanted to publicly say THANKS for his efforts !!!

Perfect storm in that while I was busy trying hard to save the sanity of Mr David Broyles, Marion was making things work on the other end.

Back on September 13th at Cavalier Park we hosted an event and one of the things we did was celebrate the impending retirement of David Broyles. Greg Bolen, Kevin Burress and Russell Smoot teamed up to make it a priceless moment as we danced in costumes to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.

Sadly, as David was set to sail off into the Sunset 🌇 and enjoy the rest of his life with his Bride 👰, Allen Worrell stepped away from the Newspaper 📰. This left the folks in Mt. Airy no other choice but to convince David to stay on and be a Gap person until a replacement for Allen was in place.

While there are people on both sides of the fence on Allen Worrell, know that he was a skilled editor. Very good at his job and in an industry that I have been in the past 50 years, so I’m qualified to say is dwindling away to notta.

Now, our friend David is trying hard to keep the operation upright and while a wonderful person who can write ✍ and tell a story, he’s not an editor. I watched as the community paper filled space with a NFL recap instead of asking me for another story..

I’m not sure just how long David can take one for the team in the manner that he is but as long as he’s trying, I will try and do my best to assist him. This week I was able to create four stories and each one was a fun write ✍ about local people doing cool things so hopefully it will all work out for another edition !

The entire Thought Process that Lin and I have with OneofUs.Care is to give people Hope and make people smile when the World 🌎 is itching for a fight. There is still hope and this past week Marion was helping me while I was helping David and Shawn Montgomery received solid coverage for his Cross Country program. We celebrated Darian Brown earning his first victory and marveled at Kris Richardson as the Basketball Whisperer.

Kindness matters and there are so many levels of bullying that go undetected. It’s okay to give your neighbor the benefit of the doubt because we are all facing serious problems every day.

Haven’t made it to Paris yet and its a great story about why that is but it will be told soon enough.

The Duke – Baylor game isn’t until Monday night so there’s no need to worry yet.

After that game in Paris, Marion and I will team up to create a International event by covering the Carroll County at Abingdon Regional Volleyball match. That will be Fun…

The next piece of business will be to create a page for the month long adventure with Duke University Women’s Basketball 🏀. This is the closing chapter for my Hoops Book 📖 as it will include the eight games that the Blue Devils will play this month.

Paris, Durham(2), Greenbriar Resort, Liberty University, Tampa Florida and finally two games in Las Vegas.

For the readers that are interested in this story they can just click on that page.

While this is taking place, I will be covering some Middle School Basketball and supporting whoever wants some positive attention.

Have yourself a Blessed Day 🙌

Let’s call this one : Kris Richardson and Kira Lawson and my Love 💓 for Women’s Basketball 🏀!

Now that we are safely 🙏 at the Charlotte Airport awaiting our flight ✈️ to Paris, France 🇫🇷, I can finally write ✍ about the Carroll County Middle School Basketball game Thursday night on The Hill.

CCMS hosted the Blacksburg Bruins in their second home game to start the eight week season. The scorebook will tell us that our Lady Cavaliers fell short in the contest, 28-14 and while we will dig into the game,, we will also look at the Big Picture down the road.

Blacksburg Bruins 4 8 14 2 – 28

Carroll County Cavs 3 2 0 9 – 14

The two teams played an extra session and tied 5-5.

Kris Richardson falls into the category of DRIVEN and that’s our common bond. If you look at any given Coach and ask yourself, I wonder why he or she is coaching and you could have 1,000 different answers. My neighbor wants the Girls Basketball 🏀 team to return to the level of glory it experienced a few years back !

It’s such a belief in his skill set that was willing to take over the Middle School Girls Basketball program. If you want to be the Best, you gotta be willing to put in the work. The group that captured our Back 2 Back State Titles played Hoops together from the third grade on. That equals a decade of commitment and then some.

The Lady Cavaliers will play again on Monday up at Christiansburg, game three on the year but the first time it will involve a Bus 🚌 ride and playing in front of someone else’s Home fans. Just two more obstacles on the long and winding road to long term success.

It was a tremendous ” get ” to have Miss Lauren Alley on the coaching staff this season ! Yes, both Steve Martin and Richardson played the game and played it well but to a 12 year old Girl, that was back in the time of dinosaurs 🦕.

Alley played the game with a level of grit and determination that is mandatory in the game today. If I wanted to have a poster child for what is required to play today’s game of Girls Basketball, it would be the 2024 Graduate 🎓.

Looking at the box score, its easy to ask what happened in the second half ? The quarters went 0/14 and then 9/2 with the difference between the two six minute frames being the use of the off arm when on offense and being willing to play aggressive defense.

When a young Girl is growing up today she has choices. Volleyball, Basketball, Softball and Soccer with the biggest difference between the sports being the level of having someone in your grill for 94 feet. Each sport requires its own set of skills but Basketball is the one that has someone slapping at you the entire time.

Listening to the Dads sitting near me last night, I can tell you two things. They love their daughters and their understand the game because they grew up playing it. Big help in that category !

Quick note 📝 on the picture of the Cheerleaders. They are part of the Hoops experience and I won’t ever write a Basketball story without including at least one picture. If someone reads this and has access to the Cheer Coach and names PLEASE let me know.

Steve Martin not only played the game well but then helped coach up his daughter years later. Martin is not bashful about communicating with the players and this is another good thing !

The team didn’t win Thursday night and they might win on Monday night but remember that this is a long-term agenda that is designed to end with Lady Cavaliers and scissors cutting down some nets.

No predictions here but I will add that I wouldn’t bet against my fellow Laurel Forkian…is that really a word ?

I have went out of my way to make Boys Coach Darian Brown feel welcome here on The Hill ! Sometimes its tough to adjust to new surroundings and its something that I have done my entire life so I want to be a personal Welcome Mat.

Two things that I can tell folks about Coach Brown – one, he has a serious Golf ⛳ Game so don’t let him take your Lunch money.

Two, Coach really liked my Duke University Coaches jacket last night and I think he would look smooth wearing one himself !!

Kira Lawson is Hero of mine and I’ve watched the current Duke University Women’s Basketball Coach grow up in my lifetime. First as a dominant player for Pat Summitt at Tennessee, then in the WNBA. Time spent as an analyst and then moved into her first Coaching position at Duke.

Lawson is also the current Coach of Team USA 🇺🇸 and right now she is in Paris. France 🇫🇷 for the Blue Devils opening game versus Baylor University. We couldn’t take advantage of the travel package offered through the School because we had Cross Country runners and Middle School Hoops to support before we could comfortably get out of town

In the month of November, Lawson will Coach eight times. Once in France, once at the Greenbriar Resort, twice at the home arena for the Las Vegas Aces, twice at Cameron Indoor Stadium, once at Liberty University and South Florida.

Let’s call 📞 it a November to Remember!

Thanks for reading about Kira, Kris and Darian !

Kara Lawson and her Lady 👩 Blue Devils are heading to Paris, France 🇫🇷 to kickoff the 2025-2026 season !