By Marty Gordon
Landon Clark led Radford High School to the school’s first state title in 51 years and is ready to continue his playing career at Elon University. The 6-0, 205 quarterback passed and rushed for over 4,700 total yards and accounted for or was a part of 70 touchdowns. Clark finished 207 for 339 on the season through the air for 3,402 yards, but it was his legs that might have made the difference this past season as rushed 136 times for 1,312 yards.
For his effort, Clark is the 2023 All-County, All-City football team player of the year. His favorite target, Max Kanipe, is the offensive player of the year.
Kanipe finished with 74 receptions for 1,598 yards with 17 touchdowns. He had nine catches in the state championship contest for 218 yards, pulling in 80 percent of Clark’s passes for the title.
Tanner Evans is the all-purpose offensive player of the year. He led Christiansburg to a 6-1 record this past season as QB1.
Evans suffered a season-ending knee injury in week 7, bringing a screeching halt to what was starting to be a memorable year. He finished the season with 117 rushes for 1,208 yards with 22 touchdowns and passed 50 of 84 for 782 yards with 12 touchdowns and just one interception.
The senior plans to continue his baseball career at the University of Charleston.
The All-County, All-City coach of the year is no surprise. Michael Crist led Radford to a state title and a 15-0 record in only his third season.
An unofficial coach of the year award is given to Scott Mikowicz, who took over an Auburn program, which had only played 15 games in the past four years. The Eagles were 0-5 in 2022 before shutting it down, 0-4 in 2021 because of similar situations and COVID knocked them out of entire season before that. The last season, the school played a full schedule was 2019 when they finished 6-7 and did have an
appearance in the Single-A playoffs.
Mikowicz directed an Auburn program, which had questions for most of the year on whether it would have enough players to finish the season. Not only did they finish the season, they’re preparing for next year after a successful junior varsity season.
Radford’s Charlie Davis was named the all-county/all-city defensive player of the year. He tallied 157 tackles this season with 62 solos.
The 2023 all-county/all-city offense stacked up like this:
Player of the year- Landon Clark, Radford
Offensive player of the year- Max Kanipe, Radford.
QB- Landon Clark
RB- J.D. Grubb, Radford
Matt Annis, Christiansburg
Gage Akers, Eastern Montgomery
Austin Stump, Auburn
Xavier Brown, Eastern Montgomery
Receivers- Max Kanipe, Radford
Luke Poff, Blacksburg
Javier Waldron, Blacksburg
Sinere Taylor, Radford
Tight end- Donovan Richardson, Christiansburg
All Purpose offensive player of the year- Tanner Evans, Christiansburg
Kicker- Spencer Conner, Christiansburg.
Punt returner- Izaiah Cotto, Christiansburg.
Kick returner- Xavier Joplin, Christiansburg.
The defense included Charlie Davis from Radford as the defensive player of the year.
The 2023 defensive unit were:
Defensive lineman- Ricky Bailey, Radford
Dawson Martin, Radford
Jaiden Edwards, Christiansburg
Carter Stallard, Christiansburg
Linebacker- Charlie Davis, Radford
Gage Akers, Eastern Montgomery
Josiah Ratley, Christiansburg
Matthew Wheeler, Auburn
Defensive back- Izaiah Cotto, Christiansburg
Landon Clark, Radford
Luke Poff, Blacksburg
Brody Blount, Christiansburg
Punter- Matt Annis, Christiansburg
Defensive specialist- Landon Clark, Radford