Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 10 No. 6 | June 2018

inside.hokiesports.com 9 by Jimmy Robertson Young talent across all Tech sports points to promising future Those who hop on Twitter frequently and also follow various noted sports figures probably learned recently that Phil Steele submitted his pages to his 2018 College Football Preview to his printer and mailed advance copies to various sports dignitaries. Many consider Steele as the crystal ball for college football. He conducts an inordinate amount of research and makes an array of predictions in his magazine, usually with breathtaking accuracy and often to gamblers’ delight. Your editor wasn’t quite fortunate enough to score one of those early copies, but a guess would be that Steele predicted the Hokies to finish in the upper half of the ACC’s Coastal Division this season—a reasonable evaluation given personnel losses, especially on defense. Tech certainly features a lot of interesting, young potential, with guys like Emmanuel Belmar, Phil Patterson, Khalil Ladler, Dylan Rivers, TyJuan Garbutt, Zion Debose and Caleb Farley all showing flashes at some point over the past two seasons. That creates excitement, but also uncertainty—though keep in mind that talent always wins. And therein lies the theme of this piece—Virginia Tech has no shortage of young talent. In most of its sports, too. The future looks bright. This thought came up while watching the Tech track and field athletes compete at the NCAA Championships in Oregon in early June. All eight of the women’s qualifiers return next season, and with another year of training, athletes like Rachel Pocratsky (distance runner), Eszter Bajnok (jumper) and Lisa Gunnarsson (pole vault) could become national title contenders. There is a ton of young talent in all of Tech’s sports. Take, for instance, the men’s basketball program. Nickeil Alexander-Walker averaged in double figures as a freshman, and freshmen Wabissa Bede and P.J. Horne showed flashes. This trio, teamed with veterans Justin Robinson, Chris Clarke, Ahmed Hill and Ty Outlaw, … well, is a third straight NCAA appearance a stretch? On the women’s side, incoming freshmen DaraMabrey and Shaniya Jones give theHokies much-needed guard depth to go with exciting sophomore Aisha Sheppard. Those three combined with seniors Rachel Camp, Taylor Emery, Regan Magarity and Alexis Jean make for a nice nucleus. NCAA tourney, anyone? The lacrosse team, which set all sorts of records this past spring and won a game in its first appearance in the NCAA Championship, returns scoring phenom Paige Petty, a sophomore. Watch out for fellow sophomores Sarah Lubnow and Leigh Lingo, too. Sophomore Kristo Strickler and junior Brendan Moyers are ready to help the men’s soccer team to another NCAA bid. The women’s soccer team lacked scoring punch a year ago, but sophomore Allyson Brown returns, along with juniors Jordan Hemmen and Mandy McGlynn. The added experience may be enough to push the program back to its customary lofty level. They’re close. New softball coach Pete D’Amour insists that he likes the roster. Sophomore pitchers Keely Rochard and Jordan Dail and junior All- ACC player Carrie Eberle are nice pieces for a foundation. On the baseball front, the Hokies are in the midst of a rebuilding project, but sophomore Ian Seymour pitched like an ace as a freshman. The men’s tennis team returns the entire lineup. The women’s tennis squad lost three seniors, but sophomores Nika Kozar and Nina Sorkin won 21 and 19 matches as freshmen, respectively. They come back, along with standout junior Natalie Novotna, whichmakes the Hokies a tough out in ACC play. The volleyball program continues to rebuild under head coach Jill Wilson, but there certainly appears to be a nice foundation with sophomore Kaity Smith and junior Ester Talamazzi. Smith made the All-ACC Freshman Team this past fall. The wrestling team seems to feature talent year in and year out. David McFadden, a junior, and Mekhi Lewis, a redshirt freshman, just made U.S. national teams. Brent Moore was an ACC champion as a redshirt freshman this past season, and Hunter Bolen was the ACC Freshman of the Year. Expect McFadden to make a serious run at a national title. This list just represents a sampling and bodes well for the future, especially considering that the present hasn’t been bad by any means. This past academic year, eight Tech teams qualified for NCAA postseason play, with individuals from six other sports (men’s golf, men’s swimming and diving, women’s swimming and diving, men’s track and field, women’s track and field, and wrestling) participating in postseason action. Given the young talent on Virginia Tech’s rosters, one might be tempted to channel his/ her inner Phil Steele and predict 2018-19 as the year of the Hokies. It would be an easy call to make—and one in which Steele probably would agree.