Notre Dame kickoff slated for 8 p.m.
Virginia Tech’s game vs. Notre Dame will be televised to a national audience on ABC with kickoff slated for 8 p.m. ET.
The Hokies are coming off a 31-14 win at Duke while the Fighting Irish registered a 38-17 home victory vs. Stanford. The Fighting Irish will make their first-ever appearance at Lane Stadium. The Hokies won the initial meeting between the two schools by a 34-31 margin as Tech erased a pair of 17-point deficits in the contest in South Bend on Nov. 19, 2016.
Hokies on preseason list
FloWrestling has revealed their preseason rankings for the 2018-19 season and seven Hokies are ranked within the top 25 in their respective weight classes.
The group features two returning All-Americans, a Junior World Champion and four NCAA qualifiers. Of the seven, three transferred into the program during the offseason and each one fills a place of need in the Virginia Tech lineup.
Korbin Myers is ranked 11th in Flo’s 133-pound rankings. A transfer from Edinboro with two years of eligibility remaining, Myers went 74-34 in two seasons.
Ryan Blees took a major step forward last season as he went 21-8. With his spot at 149 solidified, FloWrestling slotted him at No. 14 in their preseason rankings.
Mekhi Lewis is fresh off of winning a world title at the Junior World Championships in just his third-ever freestyle competition. Despite not factoring in freestyle results into their rankings, Lewis’ No. 15 preseason rank at 165 pounds was based off of his impressive redshirt season where he went 28-7.
David McFadden is ranked fifth in Flo’s 174-pound rankings after wrestling at 165 pounds the last three seasons.
Zack Zavatsky enters his senior campaign with the pressure of achieving All-American status off his back and is ranked fourth at 184 pounds in Flo’s preseason rankings
Bucknell transfer -Tom Sleigh comes to Blacksburg with a resume that should be taken seriously in the ACC. Sleigh, ranked 16th at 197 by FloWrestling, is 11 wins away from 100 career victories and has qualified for NCAAs in each of his three seasons that he’s competed in.
Billy Miller is another multi-time NCAA qualifier that transferred into the program during the offseason. He will enter his lone season with Hokies with a top 10 preseason ranking of seventh by FloWrestling.
Climbing competition
The annual Venga! indoor climbing competition, will be held at Crimper’s Climbing Gym, 100 Central Ave., Christiansburg, Saturday, Oct. 13.
All levels of competition—recreational to expert—will be held at this USA Climbing Collegiate and USA Climbing Bouldering sanctioned event. Climbers need not be members of USA Climbing to compete at the Crimper’s Venga, but competitors who are members of USA Climbing can earn points for the international events.
Youth climbers, 8 years to 18 years of age, will compete from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and adults will compete from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m.
For more information, check out www.crimpersclimbing.com.
5K & Heart Walk
Hundreds of New River Valley area residents are expected to step out to raise funds to fight heart disease and stroke, America’s No. 1 and No. 5 killers at the American Heart Association’s 5K Race & Heart Walk Saturday, October 7. The event begins with activities at 1 p.m. and the walk begins at 2 p.m. at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center at 1715 Pratt Drive in Blacksburg.
For more information or to register as an individual or team, visit www.nrvheartwalk.org or contact Ashley Ege, American Heart Association at 309-1302 or ashley.ege@heart.org.
Seufer wins cross country meet
Virginia Tech runner Peter Seufer outlasted the competition at the Paul Short Run, winning the men’s 8K gold race at the meet held Saturday morning at the Goodman Campus Cross Country Course on Lehigh University’s campus in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Seufer led a strong performance by the Tech men’s team, which came in second out of 41 teams. The Hokies scored 80 points, finishing just three points behind winner Utah State in the battle for the team title.
Seufer ran the race in 24 minutes, 11 seconds and beat Hofstra’s Meshack Kipchirchir by 18-hundredth of a second. The redshirt junior from Lynchburg, Virginia paced a Tech contingent that placed four runners in the top 10.
The Hokies’ Fitsum Seyoum, Ben Fleming (Blacksburg) and Bashir Mosavel-Lo came in eighth, ninth and 10th, respectively. Seyoum and Fleming both finished in a time of 24:40, while Mosavel-Lo ran the course in 24:41.