Dukes Hosting WNIT Sweet 16 Game

In case you didn’t know, and honestly you didn’t, Kenny Brooks’ team had a huge OT comeback win against Wake Forest last weekend and is now set to host South Florida in the Women’s NIT Sweet 16 this Friday. Game’s at 7 p.m. and admission for students is free.  You even get schwag and to see the band fine-tuning Start Wearing Purple, which apparently is finally catching on!  Additionally, the winner gets the Cr(App) St. at UVa winner with the home team between JMU and UVa likely determined by whoever gets more attendance in this round in the event they each win.  Would be pretty sweet to host UVa for a chance to go the NIT Final Four so best of luck to the women’s team!

[Interesting thought on the women’s team: Cooler from a casual JMU fan’s perspective to win the WNIT or lose a first-round NCAA game/get blown out by a Baylor/UConn type in the second round?]

On a personal note, as some of you who follow us on Twitter may know (@JMUsportsblog) I dork out, I mean really dork out, occassionally, about adventure racing.  Thanks to an old JMU friend of mine, I’ve fallen in love with this fun, difficult, but admittedly over-indulgent, first-world, fringe sport.  But this week I actually have a JMU sports angle on my pricey masochistic hobby!  Our female teammate this weekend (“elite” division teams are coed) was none other than the absolute best athlete in Harrisonburg, Dukes Field Hockey Coach Antoinette Lucas.  In her very first race, in this case a 12-hour race in Shenandoah River State Park between Luray and Front Royal, she was a rock-star and only us boys held her back from a better finish.  Seriously, nothing like having a former Olympian on the team to remind the rest of us of our “amateur” status.  Also, the race was the very first event produced by a new company, Adventure Addicts Racing, owned by JMU grad Andy Bacon!  Having done a ton of these the past few years, I am happy to report that in true Dukes style, this was a top-class event.  If you’re interested in the sport at all, check out the Adventure Addicts website or read our team’s race report from this weekend.  Thanks to Coach L and now you all know why we often and inexplicably skew radically towards Field Hockey on an otherwise football/hoops/Sapong-centric blog.