Sean McCurdy is currently on a visit at W&M, a week after taking a trip to JMU. It seems like it’s down to the Tribe and Dukes for his services, and both camps have reported the visit as positive. In my opinion, W&M makes more sense for him strictly from a basketball standpoint, but we will see where his priorities lie. Updates will be posted as they come.

In Newport News today the Tribe flat-out took VCU to the woodshed. The Tribe won 4-0 against the nation’s #26 ranked team, behind Megan Moulton-Levy and her doubles partner Katarina Zoricic. This win is W&M’s 4th CAA championship this year, and gives the 20-2 girls a spot in the NCAA tournament.

Baseball-The Tribe had another disappointing day, dropping their second straight to VCU, 5-4. This makes tomorrow a must-win to stay in CAA contention with a tough schedule ahead.

Tennis-The Men’s Tennis team dropped their match to #32 ODU, but Women’s Tennis kept it going and will play in the CAA final tomorrow at 10 AM in Newport News.

Football-The stat lines are out from the Spring game today, with RJ Archer’s line looking the best. He went 9-14 with 126 yards and a TD through the air, and 58 yards plus 2 TD’s on ground. Potts went 11-15 with 142 yards, and Phillips was 8-13 with 91.

Courtland Marriner had the best line on the ground, with 39 yards on 6 carries. The biggest thing I overlooked in my last post was Drew Atchison, who gained 84 yards on 4 catches. Cam Dohse caught a 48-yarder, and Joe Nicholas gained 48 yards with a touchdown. DJ McAulay had 40 yards, and Rob Varno gained 49 yards on 4 catches with a TD.

The defense had a sub-par game, but had sacks from Tracy, Lissemore, and Reyer. TJ O’Neill and Michael Pigram also had very good games, and Derek Cox was the standout in the secondary.

Basketball-The CAA came home with an L from the game tonight, but AP still had a pretty good game. He started slow, but ended with some very nice dunks against little defense. It was great to see the whole team there supporting him, also.

Tomorrow is another big day for the Tribe with the CAA Women’s Tennis final and the 3rd game of the VCU series, both of which are huge for the Tribe.

RJ Archer looked very good at QB, and is easily the best running QB. Ran for 2 touchdowns and threw for one. Potts had a tough day and got sacked several times.

Tony Viola will probably be our 3rd down back, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Courtland Marriner started. He is the fastest player on the team and had some big runs.

Joe Nicholas was sporting #17 and looked pretty good at WR. Cam Dohse also had a nice game with a long catch from RJ Archer.

Defense was getting some pretty good pressure and had some nice hits, sacking Potts a few times. Only had one turnover, which was a fumble recovery.

Off to the ACC/CAA game.

Benock to Mississippi State

Down to Joseph, O’Donnell, and McCurdy. O’Donnell is the point guard from Florida that we have been going after for a while, and Maurice Joseph is a Michigan State transfer that it seems we are looking at. He played around 16 minutes a game last year for the Spartans.

Finally, TheTribeHasSpoken.net offers it’s condolences, thoughts, and prayers to Hokie Nation after the tragedy that took place Monday.

So the Tribe has signed basketball recruit John Sexton, but unexpectedly Riley Benock has yet to be announced. Last signing period, both players were announced at the same time, and I have heard that Benock is no longer coming here. Apparently, also, Matt McFadden is not getting a scholarship this year, which leads me to believe Shaver likes his chances with Sean McCurdy. There are no updates on the Arkansas transfer, and I don’t expect any until the end of the semester.

Also, Tribe baseball beat Hofstra big in Long Island, after beat Liberty earlier in the week. Looks like we are getting back on track.

Also, I’m considering bagging the recruiting pages and just updating via posts. Then there would be a recruiting section under “categories” where all the posts would be organized. If anybody is against this, let me know in comments.

ACC/CAA

Great news for the CAA. Let’s try to represent the Tribe.

Tough games for the Tribe, and pitching was just terrible throughout the weekend. This really hurts any chance of CAA contention, and has them in a multi-game hole against ODU.

Riley Benock, a 6-4 Kentucky guard has commited to W&M, the 4th commitment of the year. He is the Tribe’s third guard of the 2007 class, and also received an offer from Furman and interest from Penn State and Purdue. He was ranked #62 in the state by Kentuckypreps.com, who had this to say about him…

Versatile player that poses match-up problems. Effective passer and ball handler. Shot range most effective inside 15 feet. Can hit the 3. Must improve footwork to become better defender on the perimeter.

Here is the report from ESPN recruiting tracker…

6-foot-5 shooting guard Riley Benock orally committed to William & Mary on Saturday, reports the News-Enterprise. The senior chosed the Tribe over Furman and several NAIA schools. “It was the best option for me basketball-wise and academic-wise,” Benock said.

Here is a report from the recruiting section of a Kentucky Newspaper…

One of the state’s top sleepers, the 6-foot-4 Benock doesn’t play in an area that gets a lot of media attention. He’s a combo guard who can stroke it from the perimeter and also has exceptional passing skills. Benock averaged 12 points, seven rebounds and six assists as a junior and hit 50 three-pointers.

Also, his school website has many nice resources. First of all, total stats show he led the team with 18 points per game and 7 rebounds. It also has some nice movies, including a Benock dunk off the glass during warm-ups and also a nice reverse. Finally, it has an extensive photo gallery, which you can find here.

This could mean one of 2 things. First, it could mean Matt McFadden will not receive a scholarship this year. Second, it could mean somebody is going to transfer. Within the next week, we will know the answer, but I shudder at the thought of losing someone to a transfer after a breakthrough year.

Now on to the baseball game, William and Mary’s fifth straight win. Liberty got the loss in Lynchburg Tuesday in an 8-3 game which was headed by 2 Tim Park homers and 8 strong innings from Tyler Truxell. The Tribe had a total of 17 hits, including 2 each from Maliniak, Sheraton, McWhorter, and Sexton. Baseball returns home Friday for a 3-game set against CAA foe Georgia State, and faces Liberty at home next Tuesday.

Go Tribe!

The baseball team has continued it’s hot play, improving to 19-13 with a sweep over Wagner. In Saturday’s double-header, the first game belonged to Brent McWhorter and Greg Sexton. McWhorter went 2-4 with a homer and 4 RBIs, and Greg Sexton also went 2-4 with a homer and 2 ribbies in an 8-5 win. Sean Grieve pitched a very solid game, going 5 innings with only 1 run, but also served up 6 walks. The second game had an unlikely star in Jeff Wera, a back-up catcher who went 2-3 with 3 RBIs in a 6-4 win. Kevin Landry pitched a nice game, going 5 innings with only 1 earned run.

On Sunday, the Tribe won a hard-fought 14-12 game that involved little pitching. Tim Park, Mike Sheridan, and Greg Sexton went deep for the Tribe, and Greg Maliniak also added a 4-5 day. Warrik Staines had a tough day giving up 3 runs in a little over 2 innings, but it was his third time pitching in two days, which is definitely difficult.

Also, you can add Kentucky 2-guard Matt Walls to the Tribes recruiting radar, as he has an offer from W&M. I’ll try to get around to updating the recruiting page today.