Regional Sports Briefs

One area singles player and two doubles teams will compete in state individual tennis tournaments this week.

Jefferson Forest senior No. 1 singles player Morgan Huff, the Region III individual singles champion, will take on Region IV champion Kristin Harter of Hidden Valley in the Group AA semifinals today at 9 a.m. at Radford University. The winner will play the winner of the other semifinal match between Lafayette’s Tori Ford and Handley’s Elizabeth Gardiner in the championship at noon.

Also today, E.C. Glass’ No. 1 doubles team of George Gianakos and Charlie Andrews, the Northwest Region champions, will challenge Northern Region runner-up Sidarth Balaji and Jason Luu of Fairfax in a Group AAA state quarterfinal match at 1 p.m. at Jefferson District Park in Falls Church. If they win, Gianakos and Andrews would face the winner of Wednesday’s quarterfinal between Kyle Parker and Kevin Calhoun of Mills Godwin and Sam Karr and Bobby Kostinas of Western Branch on Friday at 1 p.m. with the championship match set for Saturday at 1 p.m.

On Friday, JF’s senior No. 1 boys duo of Josh Ranowsky and Tyler Johnston, the Region III champions, will face Region I champions Eliot Mee and Wils Fauntleroy in a Group AA semifinal at Virginia Tech, starting at 1 p.m. The winners advance to the championship match against the winner of Friday’s other semifinal between Joey Manilla and Ben Fitts of Western Albemarle and Randall Carter and Adam Henderson of Abingdon on Saturday at noon.

College swimming

Randolph coach resigns

The Randolph College swim team will be under the direction of a new head coach next season, as current head coach Donna Hodgert has resigned.  Hodgert joined the WildCat program in 1997 as an assistant coach and has been at the head of the program since 2000.

The WildCats have finished third in four of the last six Old Dominion Athletic Conference Championship meets. In 2004, Hodgert was named the ODAC Coach of the Year after her team finished the season with a dual meet record of 10-2 and a third-place finish at the conference championship meet.

Track & field

Flames send four to NCAAs

Liberty University’s men’s team will send four athletes — seniors Jon Hart, Clendon Henderson and Brandon Hoskins and sophomore Evans Kigen — to the NCAA championships, hosted by Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, from June 11-14.

Hart finished third in the hammer at this past weekend’s NCAA East Regional championships to earn a return trip to the national meet. He is seeded eighth with a top mark of 222 feet, 4 inches. Henderson qualified for the second year in a row in the discus by finishing runner-up at the East Regionals. He ranks third on the national performance list at 204-3.

Hoskins will try to improve on his seventh-place showing in the decathlon at last year’s NCAA meet. The two-time All-American is seeded third with a top score of 7,800.

Kigen, from Kenya, will make his NCAA debut in the 3,000-meter steeplechase after finishing second at the East Regionals, posting a school-record time of 8:49.39. He is seeded 24th.

Liberty freshman Clarence Powell missed an at-large qualification in the triple jump by one inch after placing ninth in the East Regionals with an LU and Big South-record leap of 51-9.