Hokie softballers honored
Virginia Tech’s Keely Rochard has earned national player/pitcher of the week by three different organizations, as well as ACC Pitcher of the Week, and Emma Strouth was tabbed ACC Co-Player of the Week, as announced by the organizations on Tuesday.
Rochard picks up her second NFCA and Fastpitch News Pitcher of the Week honors this season, while earning her first USA Softball Player of the Week. Strouth earns her first weekly honor from the league office this spring, while Rochard gets her third ACC honor this season.
Rochard threw a perfect game against then-No. 20/17 JMU (31-7, 11-1 CAA) last Wednesday, marking the No. 21/20 Hokies’ (37-6, 16-2 ACC) seventh in program history and the first-ever against a ranked opponent.
Strouth broke the school record for RBIs in a season last Friday against in-state rival Virginia, getting a two-run single to break Megan Evans’ record of 50 set in 2005.
All-Big South men’s tennis
Three members of the Radford University men’s tennis team took home Big South Conference postseason awards on Tuesday morning. Alexandros Caldwell earned two honors – Second Team All-Conference Singles and the All-Academic Team, while Yevhen Sirous and Rodrigo Magalhaes were part of the Second Team All-Conference Doubles squad.
Caldwell’s second team honors mark the first time Radford has gotten back-to-back second team selections since the award split into two teams in 2016. The senior went 15-4 in singles play with 12 wins coming at the No. 3 slot – ranking first in the Big South. In conference play, Caldwell picked up four wins.
Radford had a doubles tandem earn all-conference honors for the second time in as many years. Yevhen Sirous and Rodrigo Magalhaes, Radford’s No. 1 doubles team, were named to the conference’s second team. Magalhaes was a member of the duo that was named all-conference a year ago.
Caldwell was also named to the Big South All-Academic Team for the third straight season as the business management major possesses a 3.77 GPA. He becomes the third player to earn the honor in three consecutive seasons and the first since the 2007-09 campaign.
Lady Highs all-Big South
Anastasia Belyaeva, Drousile Dzeubou and Malin Falk represented the Radford University women’s tennis program on Monday afternoon as the Big South Conference announced its annual awards and all-conference teams. In addition to the trio, Tyler Blalock earned all-academic honors.
Belyaeva’s First Team All-Conference Singles award highlighted the three, while Dzeubou and Falk earned Second Team All-Conference Singles.
Belyaeva’s first season as a Highlander was a great one. She tallied a 13-7 record with 12 of those as a No. 1 flight. The Khabarovsk, Russia native picked up four of those wins against other No. 1 players in Big South play. She currently has a four-match winning streak with two of the four wins coming against USC Upstate and Gardner-Webb.
Dzeubou, who was named First Team All-Conference Singles in 2017 and 2018, becomes the first player in program history to collect three all-conference singles honors. The Turin, Italy native compiled a 15-5 overall record and a 5-4 mark in Big South action. The 15 wins were the most on the team and 14 of them came as the No. 2. She finished the season with the second most wins by a conference No. 2 player.
Capping off a sensational freshman campaign, Falk was named to the Big South’s Second Team All-Conference Singles team. She joins Belyaeva as the fourth Highlander to earn all-conference honors in their first season in a Radford uniform.
Blalock played as the No. 4 singles and No. 1 doubles most of the season. She was tabbed as a Big South All-Academic team honoree. The Abingdon native is a double major (criminal justice and psychology) and has a 3.96 overall GPA.
ACC Network coverage
ACC Network Extra, the ESPN streaming channel devoted to the Atlantic Coast Conference, will deliver close to 40 hours of exclusive spring championships action on the ESPN app and WatchESPN, beginning this weekend with the ACC Men’s and Women’s Golf Championships and the Men’s and Women’s Tennis Championships.
The schedule also includes coverage of next month’s ACC Outdoor Track & Field Championships and the ACC Rowing Championship.
The lineup follows a busy February and March in which the ACC and ACC Network Extra produced more than 40 hours of winter Olympic sports championships coverage.