Marty Gordon
Longwood University has announced the addition of four golf signees during the early signing period including one from Christiansburg.
Josh Cummins will continue his playing career at the Farmville school.
Cummins was named the Christiansburg High School’s most valuable player for four straight seasons, and he was a two-time All-State selection, earning the honor in both 2023 and 2024. This past fall, he posted a 72.5 scoring average to earn his all-state honors. He also played for Team Virginia for the Mid-Atlantic Junior Invitational, and he helped Virginia win the tournament.
He has had a lot of success on the amateur circuit as well, finishing sixth at the Virginia Junior, and he was a quarterfinalist in the 2024 Virginia Junior Match Play.
Cummins earned a spot representing Virginia at the 2024 Mid-Atlantic Invitational, and he finished tied for 38th at the 2024 Virginia Open, an event that included professionals, with a 73-73-71—217.
The Christiansburg golfer said there were several reasons he chose Longwood but the main reason is because he felt like it’s the best fit for him to be successful academically and to improve his golf game.
“I really connected to Coach (Kevin) Fillman and I really like his coaching style,” he said. “Not only does he want us to be successful on the course, he also wants us to be successful in the classroom by setting a team GPA goal of 3.5 every semester and having all of his players graduate. I had the chance to play with their top player, Justin LaRue this summer in the State Open and I was able to learn more about the team from a player’s perspective. As a team they’ve had great success in the past, including winning the Big South Conference in 2023 and on pace to do it again this year.”
Longwood has an enrollment of 4,574 undergraduates, and the university’s 14 varsity athletics programs, known as the Lancers, compete at the NCAA Division I level. Thirteen of those teams compete in the Big South Conference, while field hockey is a member of the Mid-American Conference.
The Lancers finished fifth in last year’s Big South tournament and sent one golfer to the NCAA regionals.
Fillman has coached the Longwood program for the past 28 years and during the team’s Division I era, he has helped guide the Lancers to 16 wins, and he has had 27 individual tournament medalists. In addition, his teams have finished second 21 times while garnering 34 third-place finishes.
In 2023-24, he guided Justin LaRue to the NCAA Regional as Longwood’s first individual qualifier in more than two decades.
When it comes to playing, Cummins’ main goal is to help the team win as many conference championships as possible and make it to the NCAA tournament. As an individual, his goal is to be an individual medalist and earn conference player of the year.
Cummins plans on majoring in Cybersecurity.
