TECH HOPES TO LURE STATE MEET WITH NEW CROSS-COUNTRY COURSE

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 21, 1993                   TAG: 9301200032
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-10   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium
TECH HOPES TO LURE STATE MEET WITH NEW CROSS-COUNTRY COURSE
Virginia Tech isn't finished building its on-campus cross-country course, but the Hokies already are showing it off.
Larry Johnson, a programs director for the Virginia High School League, toured the proposed course Wednesday as part of Tech's effort to land the state cross-country championship meet in November.
Johnson said a Northern Virginia site near Warrenton is competing against Tech, but Hokies cross-country coach Steve Taylor thinks Tech will get the meet, which has been held at Piedmont Community College in Charlottesville and hosted by the University of Virginia.
"I can't imagine us not getting it," Taylor said. "I'd be very, very shocked if we didn't."
Johnson said the VHSL's executive committee may discuss the site of the meet at its meeting Jan. 27, but the decision won't be made until March or April.
That the event won't be at Piedmont is a near certainty. Part of the land containing the course is subject to development, and Johnson said UVa cannot continue to take care of the course.
"The course is deteriorating to the point where there is concern about the safety of it," Johnson said. "[UVa] just doesn't have the maintenance people to do it.
"Their feeling and ours is, if we can find a better place to run it, they're willing to see it go."
Taylor said Tech's course will start near Rector Field House and end behind the veterinary school, winding mostly through land between the western edge of campus and U.S. 460 bypass. Near the finish line, Taylor said, hills and roads will give spectators an arena-like view of the last 400 meters of the course.
Taylor also wants to create a "race of champions" the week after the state meet. The top 20 finishers in Group A, AA and AAA and the top five teams in each class would return to Tech to determine the "true" state champions. At present, championships are awarded only within classes.
"Hopefully, we can get [the state meet] down here and make it even more special than it's been in the past - make it so [the athletes] feel like they're coming into a world of cross country," Taylor said.
\ LOTS OF LEGS: Tech will host the Pizza Hut Invitational track meet this weekend at which more than 1,500 athletes are expected to compete, Hokies' track coach Russ Whitenack said.
Participants are expected from Clemson, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina, Maryland, Pittsburgh, James Madison, VMI, South Carolina State, Bridgewater, Roanoke and Liberty.
\ DEFENSE: Virginia Tech women's basketball coach Carol Alfano has been praising her defense since the beginning of the season - except when it allowed Virginia to shoot 54.9 percent from the field and score 93 points on Dec. 8. Entering Monday's game against Southern Mississippi, however, no opponent had shot better than 43.8 percent from the field since the UVa game. Four teams - East Tennessee State, Drexel, Gardner-Webb and Western Carolina - shot less than 32 percent. Tech was 8-1 in that stretch.
\ UBIQUITOUS: Tech track athlete Dorothea Ku placed in five events during the Hokies' invitational meet last weekend. Ku was second in the high jump and 55-meter hurdles, third in the 20-pound weight and shot put and fourth in the long jump . . . Tech freshman Marshall Ferguson won the 3,000 meter run in a six-team meet last weekend, running a personal-best 8 minutes, 43 seconds. "For a freshman, that's a good time," Taylor said.
\ HEADLOCKS: Two Hokie wrestlers, Dante Winslow (158 pounds) and Matt Burlingame (150), won their weight classes in the Virginia State Intercollegiate Tournament at the University of Virginia last weekend, the first time since 1984-85 any Tech wrestler has won.
\ UPCOMING IN BLACKSBURG: Track and field - Pizza Hut Invitational, Jan. 23; Wrestling - vs. Morgan State, 2 p.m. Jan. 31; Swimming - vs. South Carolina, 11 a.m. Jan. 23.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB