Former CHS athlete honored
The Mountain East Conference has announced its academic honors for the spring semester, and it includes a former Christiansburg High School athlete.
Bailey Knowles, who participates in track and field at Concord was named to the All-MEC Academic Team, which is made up of student-athletes who earned a 3.70-4.0 GPA for the most recently completed semester while the Commissioner’s Academic Honor Roll list student-athletes who recorded between a 3.25 and 3.69 GPA. To qualify for this honor roll, student-athletes must have been in their championship segment during the spring semester.
Hokies to face Iowa
The matchups for the 19th annual Big Ten/ACC Challenge have been determined, and will be played in late November. The Hokies will face the Iowa Hawkeyes, the first meeting of the teams since the 2012 ACC/Big Ten Challenge, which Iowa won 95-79. Virginia Tech won its last game in the Challenge, downing Michigan 73-70 in Ann Arbor. The Wolverines went on to win the Big Ten tournament and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen at the NCAA Tournament. Dates, network assignments and tip times will be announced at a later date.
The Hokies finished the 2016-17 season 22-11 overall and 10-8 in ACC action and earned its first NCAA Tournament berth since 2007.
ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU will combine to televise all 14 games of the event, matching top college basketball programs playing for conference supremacy and the Commissioner’s Cup. All games will also be available to stream via the ESPN app.
Tech javelin thrower wins nationals
Virginia Tech thrower Irena Sediva captured her second national championship, winning the javelin throw Thursday evening at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships being held at Hayward Field.
Sediva, who won her first national title in 2015, stayed in second place for much of the event. But on her fifth throw, she launched the implement 58.76 meters (192 feet, 9 inches) to pull ahead of Florida’s Marija Vucenovic, who also made her best throw on her fifth attempt, though it only went 58.58 meters (192 feet, 2 inches).
The event marked the conclusion of Sediva’s collegiate career. It also capped a difficult two years for one of Tech’s most popular track athletes, as she missed last year’s ACC Championships and NCAA Championships with an Achilles injury, and she spent much of this spring dealing with a shoulder injury.
Molinaro US Open champion
First-year Virginia Tech wrestling assistant coach Frank Molinaro has been named the 2017 U.S. Open champion at 65 kg/143 lbs. in men’s freestyle wrestling.
Molinaro had placed second behind Jordan Oliver in the U.S. Open finals in Las Vegas, Nev. in April. However, USA Wrestling has been made aware of an alleged anti-doping violation concerning Oliver.
As specified by the UWW rules, Molinaro moves up one place and is the U.S. Open champion at 65 kg. According to USA Wrestling’s World Team Trials procedures, in the event that there is not a 2016 World medalist or 2016 Olympic medalist in the weight class, the U.S. Open champion advances directly to the Championship Series at the World Team Trials.
Molinaro, a 2016 Olympian who placed fifth in the world at 65 kg in Rio last summer, went 3-1 at the U.S. Open where he fell in the finals on criteria, 4-4, to Oliver. He enters his first season at Virginia Tech and was most recently a volunteer assistant coach at his alma mater, Penn State, where he was a two-time Big Ten champion, a four-time All-American and an NCAA champion at 149 pounds in 2012.
