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Friends of Virginia Tech and the Golf Club of Virginia present an opportunity to play golf with Frank Beamer! Next Monday, May 13th, Coach Beamer will be golfing at Beacon Hill golf course, and the Golf Club of Virginia wanted to take the opportunity to invite as many Hokies as are interested to come play the Beacon Hill course with Coach Beamer that day. 

The festivities will start at noon and will include lunch, beer and soft drinks, carts, green fees, and a chance to meet Coach Beamer, all for just $90 a person. Please feel free to bring any Hokie or a friend of a Hokie that would like to play.

You may contact Jimmie Lynn, who is with the Golf Club of Virginia, at 703-851-1170, Tim Kampa, owner of the Club at 703-625-9611, or Tom Cooper (Friends of Virginia Tech) at 703-819-2823 anytime. These numbers are their cell phones. 

Come out, have fun, play golf, and meet Coach Beamer! 

For more info about TSL sponsor Friends of Virginia Tech and the Golf Club of Virginia, click here.

The Hokies landed their first recruit for the 2003 football recruiting class when Centreville (Clifton, VA) offensive lineman Matt Welsh committed to Tech this week. The 6-5, 275-pound Welsh is the #3 junior in the state per Doug Doughty of the Roanoke Times (for Doughty's complete junior list, click here).

The commitment gets the Hokies off to a great start in recruiting. Tech will only have about 15 scholarships to give this year, and they plan on taking 2-3 offensive linemen, one of which will be Welsh.

Tech is also in very good shape for #1 Xavier Adibi (Nathaniel Adibi's brother), #2 Vince Hall (from Western Branch in Chesapeake), and #5 Kenny Lewis, Jr. (son of former Hokie great Kenny Lewis).

As noted in a TSL News and Notes update this week, we're revamping our recruiting database and therefore will not be seeding it with players until later this summer. We should be able to swing into gear right about the time football starts to heat up again. Until then, we'll keep you updated on things via TSLMail.

Big East Up to Five Bowls

The Big East signed up with two more bowl games in the last couple of weeks, giving the league five bowl tie-ins. The Continental Tire Bowl in Charlotte, NC has now been added to the league's list, with a payout of $750,000. It will pit a Big East team against an ACC team on December 28th, and a TV network has not yet been announced.

The San Francisco Bowl signed up with the Big East, as well. The game will be played New Year's Eve at 7:30 p.m. PST and will match a Big East team against a Mountain West Conference team on ESPN. Doing a quick search around the web, we couldn't find a payout listed for the San Francisco Bowl, but we assume that it too is $750,000.

This gives the Big East the following bowls and payouts (the bowls are listed in the order in which they get to pick teams):

• BCS Bowl: $11-$13 million
• Gator Bowl: $1.4 million
• Insight.com Bowl: $750,000
• Continental Tire Bowl: $750,000
• San Francisco Bowl: $750,000

Total payout to the league: $14,650,000 - $16,650,000.

Notre Dame is eligible for any one of the bowl slots if they are bowl eligible and are not in the BCS.

Hokie Softball Storms Into Big East Championship

Virginia Tech's softball team, seeded #4 in the four-team Big East Tournament, knocked off #2-seed Villanova Friday afternoon, 3-0, to advance to the tournament championship. Megan Evans had a two-run double in the bottom of the sixth to highlight a three-run sixth inning that won it for the Hokies.

The game was a pitching duel through the first five innings. Villanova pitcher Theresa Hornick had a no-hitter through five innings, but then Tech's Carmen Farmer walked to open the sixth. Mindi Wylie sacrificed her over to second. Amy Voorhees broke the no-hitter with a single that scored Farmer to put Tech up 1-0.

Clarisa Crowell followed with a single, advancing Lawrence to second, and then Shanel Garofalo grounded out, leaving the Hokies with Crowell on second and Lawrence on third with two outs. Evans then had the hit of the game, doubling Crowell and Lawrence home for the 3-0 lead.

Tech pitcher Ashlee Dobbe then shut down Villanova in the top of the seventh, and that was it. Dobbe went the distance, striking out 11 and giving up four hits. While Villanova outhit the Hokies 4-3, Tech bunched theirs together, and that was the difference.

The win was Tech's twelfth in a row,  and it follows a big first-round upset that saw the Hokies knock off #1-seed and 26th-ranked Notre Dame. The Irish had whipped the Hokies in both games of a double-header earlier this spring by a combined score of 18-0.

The Hokies will play again Saturday at 1 pm. The tournament is double-elimination, and two games must be played in the loser's bracket to determine who Tech's Saturday opponent will be. The tournament is being held at the Moyer Complex in Salem, Virginia so local Hokie fans, go see them play!

Since Tech is in the winner's bracket, the team they face Saturday must defeat them twice to win the championship. Tech needs to win just one more game to take the championship.

The Big East web site has a great softball championship page where you can track the action, including live stats that allow you to follow the game as it unfolds.

Spring Sports News

Here's a quick recap of what's up in spring sports, other than softball:

Tennis: the men's tennis team is headed back to the NCAA Tournament after missing it in 2001. The team is headed to Knoxville, TN, where the #5 Tennessee Volunteers are hosting a four-team regional.

Tech will play #23 North Carolina (19-5) at 9 a.m. in the first round. Tennessee (18-6) faces #26 Wake Forest (17-5) in the other first round match Saturday at 1 p.m. with the two winners advancing to Sunday's 1 p.m. second round match.

It will be hard for the Hokies to make it out of the regional against such stiff competition, but they have done it before. In 1999, Tech advanced to the Sweet 16 with 4-3 wins over #21 Virginia Commonwealth and #16 Alabama in the first two rounds of the tournament, which were hosted by the Hokies. Tech then lost to #1 UCLA in the next round.

Golf: the Tech golf team will play in the NCAA Central Regional Golf Tournament in Little Rock, Arkansas on May 16th through the 18th. The Hokies are the #4 seed in the 27-team regional, and they made the regional by winning the Big East golf championship recently.

There are three regionals, and the top 10 teams from each region will move on to the NCAA championships on May 29-June 1. Last year, the Hokies finished #8 in the country.

Tech is currently ranked 10th nationally in the Golfstat.com poll, 12th in the Golf Coaches Association of America poll and 18th in the Golfweek/Sagarin poll.

So Where Was TSLMail Last Week?

On a personal note, my wife and I had our third child last Tuesday, April 30th, and that's why you may have noticed that you didn't get a TSLMail last week. Anneliese Cecilia was born at 9:20 pm, weighed 8 pounds even, and was 21 inches long. Mother and baby are both doing well.

For those of you keeping score, there are now three children under the age of four in our household, so sleep -- and sanity -- are a fleeting thing under our roof.

Thanks for all the well-wishes and congratulations we received in the last ten days!

Will Stewart
General Manager and Managing Editor
TechSideline.com

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A TSL Extra subscription is $24.95 a year and comes with a 10% discount on all TechLocker.com purchases, plus access to every back issue of the TSLX -- including this month's issue, that's well over 500 pages of Hokie-related reading!

For more information and to subscribe, check out our TSL Extra Promotional Page Be sure to download the free TSL Extra Sampler and see what you're missing!

Top OL in Virginia Commits to VT - by Will Stewart, 5/8/02
Centreville (Va.) High School offensive lineman Matt Welsh, the #3-ranked junior in the state of Virginia by Doug Doughty, has committed to the Hokies.

Rites of Spring - by Jim Alderson, 5/3/02
Now that TSLX #18 and that Bizarro- world football season is out of the way, thoughts return to the real world version of Tech football, and the recently-completed spring practice.

Other Articles:
Tech to Increase Women's Hoops Funding - by Will Stewart, 4/29/02
When Virginia Tech women's basketball coach Bonnie Henrickson interviewed with Vanderbilt recently, many assumed that it was because she might be looking for more money for herself. That was only half right.