@GoASU Memorable Games 28-30

Catching up with the GoASU memorable games countdown starting on July 4th.

Game 30: Field Hockey 3 Radford 2

We had this game ranked 26th. It was the team’s only road victory on the season in a season that saw only two wins. The other game in contention was a 3-2 home win over Liberty. This gives us one correctly guessed game in the Top 30.

Game 29: Volleyball 3, NCSU 1

We had this game ranked 13th. It was a big win for the program over an ACC school at home. The atmosphere was intense and the students rushed the court after the final point of the match. It is another correct guess which leaves us 2/2. However, the spread between 29th and 13th will hurt us along the way if tiebreakers come into play.

Game 28: Men’s Cross Country 4th of 11 at SoCon Championships

Does close count? We had a meet ranked 27th, but whiffed on the exact meet. Although the team extended its top four conference finish streak to 31 stright years, we didnt feel finishing fourth in conference was memorable enough. We ranked the 4th place finish of 23 teams at the Blue Ridge Open at this spot in the countdown. Appalachian edged out conference foes Furman and Charleston along with East Tennessee State, UNC-Charlotte, UNC-Wilmington and UNC-Asheville. This result drops us to 2/3 on the list.

Baseball: Billy Jones named Head Coach

This story hit the social media world last night. GoASU has a full biography and group of quotes from colleagues. Jones seems like a blue collar guy who knows how to identify talent, which in baseball, is a vital asset to have in order to build a program. Jones has helped recruit and teach a number of major league players in his time at Oklahoma State, Arizona State, North Carolina State and Oregon State. It does say a lot about him that he coached at schools from power conferences, rich with baseball tradition.

The link here is obvious with Jones spending three seasons at NC State from 2002-04 while current Appalachian athletic director Charlie Cobb was also employed by the Wolfpack. If there is one sour note to this hire, is that Billy Jones was an assistant on a staff that was just recently replaced at Oklahoma State. It happens all the time in college athletics, but if that is the only red flag on his resume, Appalachian should be in good shape. This may cause some turnover on the current roster as is expected, but it will be interesting to see which players stick around. It will also be interesting to see if Jones keeps Chris Moore or Craig Scheffler on the staff.