by Bill Turner
Happy holidays to everyone as this will be the final edition before Old Saint Nick departs the North Pole to hopefully pay a visit to all my faithful readers.
I truly appreciate all the great comments passed along in the past year, and even (mostly) enjoy the barbs when you don’t agree with everything we mused about here in the wide, wide world of sports of Roanoke Valley sports.
We’ll open this week with a look at high school basketball. Teams take the Christmas break before two prominent holiday tournaments hit our area between Christmas and New Years Day.
The K-Guard Holiday Classic plays at the Salem Civic Center Wednesday through Friday, December 28th-30th. Wednesday’s opening games include Salem-Alleghany (3:00 pm); Hidden Valley-William Fleming (4:30 pm); PH-GarField (6:00 pm) and Cave Spring-Broadway (7:30 pm)
The Northside Classic will be the same three days at Northside High School as eight teams get together for the varsity championship competition.
Now, let’s take a look at this week’s “Big-11” Top-5 among our local squads.
#1 – Patrick Henry: The Patriots firmly hold down the top spot for the second straight week. The Patriots have been too quick for every opponent in starting 6-0. PH blew out Salem and Alleghany in the past week, giving both teams their first loss of the season.
#2 – Salem: The Spartans (5-1) stay at #2 despite the home court 22-point loss to Patrick Henry last Friday. As pointed out in last week’s column, the time to play PH is not 24 hours after you played on the road against anyone. The Spartans get a second chance to redeem themselves. The K-Guard Holiday Classic will give answers.
#3 – William Fleming: The Colonels (4-2) move to third after knocking off Cave Spring and staying close with Christiansburg despite missing 21 straight shots. The Colonels are young, but Mickey Hardy may have a sleeper.
#4 – Cave Spring: The Knights took down Northside at home and James River on the road to improve to 5-2. With three football players back, Cave Spring gains some bulk to go with the scoring prowess of Amin Abuhawwas. Another team to watch in the K-Guard.
#5 – Hidden Valley: The Titans (3-2) picked up a quality road win at Franklin County to avenge a home loss to the Eagles two weeks ago. A lot of questions remain with the Titans and head coach Troy Wells may be as mysterious as Orson Wells before we figure out their strengths.
Next, the requisite Sugar Bowl update, where more info leaks out daily on the less-than-stellar Hokie ticket sales. The Hokie faithful are circling the wagons each day, giving reasons they aren’t heading to New Orleans.
Among these are the price of tickets, the price of gas, the price of hotels, the price of airfares, Tech miserable performance against Clemson (twice), bad seat location, bad BCS selection process, bad offensive coordinator, bad play calling and the classic yet reliable, “I’d rather spend the money on something else.” Hey, I’m not making this up.
The amazing thing about all this was the story on how great Tech traveled. This will be the third straight year of lackluster Hokie ticket sales. The last time people fell for a pitch similar to this, aluminum siding was the rage.
So, how do you top that? Tech finalized next year’s schedule by adding to its home lineup a game with – hold on to your hat – Austin Peay! If you’re not familiar with the Governors, join the crowd. They are a Football Championship Subdivision member, finishing second to last in the powerful “Ohio Valley Conference” with an overall 3-8 record.
I still say Tech will stew Michigan. Oh, well….Merry Christmas.
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