By MONTE DUTTON
Ain’t gonna be no more Willie Totten to Jerry Rice at Mississippi Valley. Walter Payton blazing a trail at Jackson State? Ken Anderson quarterbacking Augustana? Walt Frazier at Southern Illinois? Centenary’s Robert Parish? Get outta town!
Maybe this is how it should be. It’s just never going to be the same again.
The small-college legend is an endangered species.
Modern times. A lot is better. A lot is worse. Got to roll with the punches. No choice.
The world is changing / Always rearranging / From birth to the end / With my Facebook friends.
Colleges are recruiting each other at the expense of the high schools. The high-school kids take offers from any school that will take them. Let me play football, Coach, and I’ll figure out something to study.
If things go well, they’ll move on. If things go badly, they’ll move on. A few will stay because, miraculously, the porridge is just right.
From a Furman perspective, the best course is still what got the Paladins this far. Find kids who want to be there. Sell the school as a special place, which, by the way, it is.
And win. Winning is a powerful incentive. Take a look at the past two men’s basketball seasons.
Women’s golfers Anna Morgan and Audrey Ryu earned bids to the NCAA Auburn Regional at the Auburn University Club, not surpringly in Auburn, Ala., May 6-8.
The Paladin players join a field of 12 teams and six additional individuals who will battle for a berth in the 24-team NCAA Championship, May 17-22 at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif. The top five teams and one individual on non-qualifying teams advance.
A senior from Spartanburg, Morgan, who is competing in her fourth straight regional, is ranked 14th nationally in the latest Scoreboard by clippd rankings. A three-time Southern Conference Player of the Year and two-time SoCon Female Athlete of the Year selection, she holds a 69.6 stroke average over 30 rounds this season, the lowest single-season stroke average in the history of the Paladin program.
Ryu, from Dublin, Ohio, is the third-ranked player in the SoCon and is second for the Paladins and third in the league with a 72.70 stroke average over 30 rounds, the lowest stroke average by a Furman freshman in the history of the program.
The thump may have been audible.
Furman set a school single-game scoring record on Wednesday evening as eight different Paladins recorded a goal in a 24-5 victory over the Radford Highlanders to conclude the regular season at Paladin Stadium.
Furman finishes the regular season with an 8-9 overall record and 6-2 mark in the Big South. With the loss, Radford drops to 6-10 and 3-4.
The Big South Women’s Lacrosse Championship is May 3-5, hosted by Mercer at Five Star Stadium in Macon, Ga.
The Paladins’ 24 goals surpassed the previous school record of 23 which came last season in a road win at Wofford. Furman also tallied 33 points, fourth most in a game in program history.
The eight who scored goals were Anna Roser (7), two shy of her school single-game record; Paige Harman (4); Sophia Buzelis (3); Hannah Dintino (4); Sophie Shaw (3) four apiece; and Hester, Molly Faul and Annabelle Biggar, each with one.
Mady Cheney collected four of the Highlanders’ five goals.
The teams traded the opening six goals of the contest with Radford tying the score at 3-3 with 10:01 left in the opening quarter with Cheney netting each of its initial three goals.
The Paladins held an opponent to five goals or less for the first time since a 21-4 triumph last season over Winthrop at Paladin Stadium.
Furman’s Dylan Schubert and Nicole Matysik are Southern Conference men’s and women’s outdoor track and field athletes of the week.
Schubert competed at the Wake Forest Invitational this week, finishing third overall in the 5,000m race with a time of 13:36.98. A senior from Loveland, Colo., he is currently first in the SoCon in the event, 14th in the East Region, and 25th in the NCAA. Schubert is the highest ranked Southern Conference athlete across all track events.
A senior from Key West, Fla., Matysik also competed at the Wake Forest Invitational, where she placed 15th in the 3,000m Steeplechase, logging a time of 10:30.16. She currently ranks first in the conference, 36th in the East Region, and 69th in the NCAA in the event. Matysik is the second-highest ranked Southern Conference athlete across all track events.
Cameron Ponder and Carson Williams will run at Stanford’s 27th Payton Jordan Invitational on Friday at Cobb Track and Angell Field.
The Paladin duo will compete in the 3,000-meter Steeplechase, which is scheduled for 10:15 p.m. EDT.
Furman athletes have a decorated history n the 3,000 Steeplechase. Williams, a senior from Raleigh, N.C., has earned All-American citations each of the last two seasons, while Ponder, a senior from Winston-Salem, N.C., has competed in the event twice at the NCAA East Preliminaries.
All told, Paladin athletes have earned 10 All-America citations in the event, with Tripp Hurt, Troy Reeder and Williams combining for five honors on the men’s side and Gabbi Jennings earning three of the five on the women’s side. Williams’ holds the Furman Steeplechase record of 8:37.65, which he set at the Lee University Last Chance meet in 2022.
Tia McFadden is the new head cheerleading coach at Furman.
A native of Florence, McFadden has spent the last year as varsity cheerleading coach at Dorman High School in Roebuck. Prior to that, she was at Clinton, where she created the school’s first competitive cheerleading team in 2020. She began her coaching career in 2017 at Clinton as the junior varsity cheerleading coach before taking over the program.
McFadden was a cheerleader at Lander University in Greenwood. In her last season, the team placed third in the nation in the Intermediate All Girl Division II finals at the NCA College National Championship. McFadden has worked as a staff instructor for the Universal Cheerleaders Association (UCA) since 2017.
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