Knights Commit to Colleges

Rachel Drum
Rachel Drum

Cave Spring High School has seen several more of its student-athletes commit to colleges in recent days, including two members of the track team. Tatum Tyler will run cross country and other distance events at South Carolina, while hurdler Rachel Crum will stay closer to home at Roanoke College.

“We’re excited to see what they’re going to do at the next level,” said Tommy McGuire, head track coach for the Knights program.

Crum competes in the 100 and 300 hurdles outdoors, along with the 4 x 100 relay, and the long, triple and high jump events.  As a junior, she also pole-vaulted.

“I [only] started track in 10th grade,” said Crum at her signing ceremony last week; 13 years in gymnastics training preceded that. She tried hurdles just last summer and found that she was, “really good at it.”

Tatum Tyler
Tatum Tyler

Crum competed in the state AA meet last weekend in Harrisonburg as an individual (Cave Spring did not qualify as team), coming in as a top-5 seed in several events, and finished fourth in the 100 hurdles. She will join a Roanoke College program that is the current ODAC champion.

Tyler is a long distance runner who ran in two events (800 and 4×400 relay) at the AA state meet. After coming in ranked 3rd, she finished 8th in the 800, with Hidden Valley’s Annie LeHardy finishing second.

“I just want to improve as a student-athlete. I hope I get that opportunity,” Tyler said.

Tyler will run in all three track seasons, at the Southeast Conference school. “I’ve been around forever,” said Tyler, who ran track for Cave Spring as an 8th grader. South Carolina’s outdoor women’s track program won a national championship in 2002.

Knights Commit to Colleges
Taylor Woodrum

Earlier this week, senior soccer player Taylor Woodrum announced his commitment to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, shortly after the Knights had concluded a successful 13-4-2 season. Cave Spring bowed out in the regionals, but earlier became the first team – ever – to beat Blacksburg in a regular season River Ridge District match, after a streak of 64 straight without a loss.

Woodrum also played ten seasons for the Roanoke Star travel program. Star Director of Coaching Graham McClain said the left back/center back a “was right up there with the best.”  Matt Neale, Woodrum’s varsity coach at Cave Spring this past season, said his departing senior, who will study civil engineering in college, had “an inner drive that is absolutely outstanding. [He’s] a coach on the field.”

Woodrum had feelers from Division One North Carolina State before deciding on D-3 Johns Hopkins, which offered him some academic support for his class work at Cave Spring.

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