If … Virginia Tech (34-18, 11-16 ACC) can steal a series win in Chapel Hill, not only are the Hokies golden for a spot in next week’s ACC Tournament, but they might just be in line to punch a ticket to the NCAAs.

The other side of the if … if UNC (39-13, 19-8 ACC) holds serve and sweeps Tech, the Hokies might face the prospect of not even making the ACC Tournament, which would deal a body blow to the squad’s hopes of playing in the NCAA Tourney.

Right now, Tech is 31st in the NCAA RPI with an OK 8-10 road record and a series win over Miami (32-18, 14-13 ACC, #16 RPI) and individual Ws over North Carolina State (37-13, 18-9 ACC, #12 RPI), Virginia (34-15, 16-11 ACC, #13 RPI) and Georgia Tech (31-22, 11-16 ACC, #28 RPI).

The Hokies are tied for seventh in the ACC (with Georgia Tech) heading into the final weekend of the regular season. Wake Forest (29-22, 10-17 ACC) is a game back in ninth, and Boston College (21-31, 9-18 ACC) and Maryland (31-22, 9-18 ACC) are two back in a tie for 10th.

Virginia Tech holds tiebreakers over Boston College and Maryland by virtue of having taken those two season series. Georgia Tech won its season series with the Hokies and holds that tiebreaker. Wake Forest and Virginia Tech did not play in the 2012 regular season.

Boston College hosts last-place Duke (19-33, 7-20 ACC) knowing that it needs a sweep and some help from North Carolina or Miami (which hosts Georgia Tech). Maryland hosts Virginia for three with the ‘Hoos also looking to solidify its seeding in the ACC Tournament and its hopes for hosting a first-round NCAA Regional.

Wake Forest hosts Clemson (32-21, 16-11 ACC) knowing that it needs to keep its season alive to have any hope of getting an at-large bid itself.

“We envision the dual degree program as one that will allow students to embrace the Anabaptist mission and vision that EMU espouses while also obtaining the training needed to put their skills to work as an engineer,” said Deirdre Smeltzer, PhD, chair of mathematical sciences.

The program commences in the fall of 2012.

Students will spend two years at EMU, immersed in calculus, physics and introductory science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses.

In the fall of the third year, students will transition to EMU’s Washington Community Scholars’ Center in Washington, D.C., fulfilling their cross-cultural requirement and gaining internship experience and valuable STEM training, according to Smeltzer.

“Then, in the spring of the third year, students will transfer to CUA and spend two years completing additional requirements,” Smeltzer said.

Nancy Heisey, academic dean at EMU, said she is excited about bringing together “the best gifts of EMU’s liberal arts curriculum with the high quality engineering training offered by CUA.”

Upon completion, students will emerge with bachelor’s degrees from both EMU and CUA.

Jake Bontrager-Singer, a first-year mathematics major from Goshen, Ind., said the pre-engineering classes he’s taken have given him “a level of understanding the material you cannot get from a large lecture. In addition, all my classes are interconnected and build on each other giving me the essentials in math, physics and chemistry that I need to advance.”

Molalenge, a 1987 alumnus of Bridgewater, has worked at the college since 2005, most recently as executive director of facility support and auxiliary services.

“The creation of this position is the first of many steps the college will take to achieve its goals as outlined in ‘BC 2020: The Strategic Plan for Bridgewater College,’” said Roy W. Ferguson Jr., interim president of Bridgewater. “This appointment represents a great step forward for the college as it prioritizes sustainability and its responsibilities to the environment and future generations.”

Molalenge, assuming his new duties immediately, will be responsible for recommending and coordinating sustainability programs, enhancing energy conservation and recycling programs on campus, serving as a resource for students and faculty wishing to work on sustainability initiatives and researching and recommending grant opportunities related to sustainability.

“I’m eager to help Bridgewater College and its commitment to sustainability efforts – conservation, education and community involvement – and also to being a role model for the community,” said Molalenge.

Regular performances begin at 8 pm; Sunday matinees start at 3 pm. Tickets are $12/ or $10 per person for seniors and for a group of ten, and can be purchased at the door or online at www.courtsquaretheater.com.

Harvey, directed by JMU professor emeritus, Tom King, is the story of Elwood P. Dowd, an affable man who claims to have an unseen (and presumably imaginary) friend Harvey — whom Elwood describes as a six-foot, three-and-one-half-inch tall pooka resembling an anthropomorphic rabbit. His social-climbing sister, Veta, increasingly finds his eccentric behavior embarrassing. She decides to have him committed to a sanitarium to spare her daughter Myrtle Mae and their family from embarrassment.

The Valley Playhouse has been providing opportunities for the community to participate in theatrical productions in Harrisonburg since 1966. Recent plays include Three Viewings, Harvey, The End of the World As We Know It, Kimberly Akimbo, The Drawer Boy, Our Town, Life X3, Morning’s at Seven, The Last Night of Bally Hoo, Collected Stories, The Blue Hotel, and Almost Maine.

The organization welcomes novice or experienced actors, and volunteers for staff positions or stage crew. Watch for auditions in early summer for the August production.

In today’s NFL, players are bigger, faster and stronger and that has only served to intensify the problem. It’s a matter of simple physics – faster and larger players lead to more violent collisions on the field. Moreover, the problem has been exacerbated by advanced equipment (such as the hard shell helmet) which, although originally designed to protect players, is all too often used as a weapon to inflict a vicious blow. The bottom line is we need to address the problem now or else the crisis of long-term degenerative health effects suffered by former NFL players will only get worse and threaten the very existence of the sport.

The ultimate tradeoff in professional football has now become whether the wealth, fame and celebrity associated with being an NFL player is worth the price of long-term disability, dementia, depression and even premature death. Although a policy change was enacted by the NFL a couple years ago to fine and deter players from leading with their helmets (and reducing blows to the head), much more needs to be done. Both the NFL and NFLPA have an obligation to educate and inform players of the long-term dangers of playing professional football, instead of treating it as the elephant in the room.

The NFL should be required to insert informed consent clauses in every NFL player contract, explicitly discussing Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) and the long-term effects of repeated head trauma; trauma known to lead to long-term depression, dementia and even death. Players must be provided full disclosure and must make their own decisions as to whether or not to participate in the sport.

Similarly, the NFLPA should include a presentation on the long-term effects of playing the game at each year’s rookie symposium. Players must be fully aware of the risks associated with playing the game. Players should have the right to walk away from the game on their own terms when they feel the risk outweighs the reward. Informed consent is the only way to ensure that players are presented with the facts needed to make an educated decision.

Many pundits say that no player would voluntarily walk away from the game and give up the lucrative contract and celebrity. The retirement of Jacob Bell (a guard with the Cincinnati Bengals) last week proved that this commonly held notion is a fallacy. Bell became the first example of an active player from today’s generation who voluntarily retired due to his concern about the long-term health effects of playing professional football. Bell’s proactive stance illustrates that more players may follow a similar path if presented with the facts and educated of the risk associated with repeated head trauma and CTE.

Junior Seau was such a big-hearted, selfless person that perhaps in death he provided the greatest gift of all to future generations of NFL players — complete awareness of the long-term effects of playing the game they love and the right to decide when enough is enough.

Eugene T. Lee is the president and CEO of ETL Associates Inc.

I have been meeting with more than 80 students at the JoAnne Rose Gallery in Reston.  All are retired and enjoy learning for the sake of learning.  Only a few were born in Virginia, but most have lived here for a very long time.  They want to know more about how the way things are in Virginia got to be that way, especially in instances where Virginia is so different from other states.

My lecture last week dealt with Virginia in the twentieth century and its dominant figure, Governor and then Senator Harry F. Byrd.  Even before Byrd held elective office the direction of the Commonwealth was set.  A new state Constitution written in a convention in 1902 was proclaimed to be in effect without a ratification vote by the people.  In a highly questionable legal move, the new constitution was not put to a vote probably out of fear that it would not be approved because its provisions related to voter registration were so harsh that they disenfranchised half the then-existing voters.  To register to vote under the new constitution one had to pass a literacy test of questions posed by the local voting registrar.  The color of your skin determined more than any factor the kind of questions you were posed.  To vote, one needed to have paid his poll tax of $1.50 (a lot of money at the time) three years in a row, six months before the election.

The results of the new voting requirements were that the voting rolls were cut in half with few African Americans able to vote.  I am sure that those who were in the dominant Democratic Party at the time rationalized the new requirements by saying that they only wanted knowledgeable people to vote and people who had invested in the government through paying their taxes to vote.  They no doubt made speeches as to how Virginia would have better government as a result.  What did happen was that the limited and controllable electorate allowed Harry Byrd to set up a political machine that dominated Virginia’s government until the 1960s.  The Byrd Machine brought the Commonwealth poor schools, underfunded mental health and social programs, and limited state infrastructure.  Finally through federal court action and the federal Voting Rights Act the shackles on Virginia voters were broken in the late 1960s and more enlightened leadership emerged to lead the state.

Now there is a nationwide effort in the states among Republicans to suppress voter participation.  It’s rationalized as ending voter fraud and abuses that have never been shown to exist.  It may keep enough people from voting to determine the outcome.  It could set up another election like 2000 with Virginia being at the center of the dispute.  Governor McDonnell has such a bill on his desk for signature that would have the effect of suppressing likely Democratic voters.  Join me in writing to him and asking him to veto it.  We do not need this sordid bit of history to repeat itself.

Ken Plum is a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.

Longwood improved to 24-20 overall while JMU fell to 16-32-2 in its 50th game of the season.

Newman went 2-for-3 with a pair of solo home runs, one in the second to give Longwood a lead it would not relinquish along with one in the eighth to expand the lead to 3-1.  His two home runs were the only extra-base hits by either team in the game.

Newman joined with designated hitter Matt Gwaltney and second baseman Travis Biddix to account for seven of LU’s 11 hits in the game and all four RBIs..  Gwaltney was 3-for-4 while Biddix added a pair of singles with each driving in a run.

Freshman starter Brandon Vick earned the win to improve to 6-2 with three scoreless innings.  Aaron Myers blanked the Dukes over the final three frames to earn his fourth save.

Junior Nick Slogik (Strongsville, Ohio/St. Edward) fell to 0-6 after allowing one run in two innings as the starter.  He was the first of seven JMU pitchers in the game.  Senior Josh Futter (Columbia, Md./Wilde Lake) made his 80th career appearance and allowed just two hits in 2 1/3 scoreless innings.

Freshman shortstop Chad Carroll (Oakton, Va./Oakton) was the lone JMU player with two hits.

The Lancers grabbed the lead with Newman’s round tripper to left field with one out in the second.  They added to it in the fourth as Newman led off with a walk, stole second with one out, moved to third with two outs and scored on Gwaltney’s RBI single.

JMU loaded the bases in the fifth with no outs and brought in its only runoff the game on a walk by junior second baseman Casey Goss (Springfield, Mo./Glendale).  However, a foul out, fly out and strikeout stranded three of JMU’s 14 runners left on base in the game.

In the eighth, Newman led off with another solo blast to left field, his 12th of the season.  A walk and single set up runners on the corners with one out, and a single to left by Biddix made it 4-1.  The Lancers loaded the bases but a double play ended the inning.

JMU still had a shot in the ninth.  The Dukes loaded the bases with one out, but a strikeout and a groundout to the pitcher clinched the Longwood win.

The Dukes will finish the 2012 regular season with a series at Towson Thursday through Saturday.

Richmond right-hander Craig Westcott worked around potential trouble in the first inning, but wasn’t as fortunate in the second as the Senators grabbed a 2-0 lead.  Devin Ivany sliced a double up the right-field line to start the inning and was bunted to third base.  The Squirrels elected to walk eight-hole hitter Sean Nicol to get to the pitcher Paul Demny.  Demny then sacrificed Nicol to second base.  Eury Perez lined a two-run single to right field, plating both Ivany and Nicol.

Demny was brilliant on the hill through the first five innings, facing the minimum and not allowing the Squirrels a hit.  Leading off the sixth inning, Ehire Adrianza finally recorded the first Richmond hit with a double.  Wendell Fairley followed and bounced a ball to the shortstop Jose Lozada.  Lozada tried to cut down Adrianza at third base and skipped the throw past the third baseman Sean Nicol.  Adrianza scored to shave the Harrisburg lead to one run on the Lozada error.  Fairley reached on the fielder’s choice and took second on the wild throw.  Westcott failed to bunt Fairley over, but while Gary Brown batted, Demny delivered wild to the backstop moving Fairley to third base.  Brown then brought Fairley in to tie the game, 2-2, when he cracked a single through the hole on the left-side of the infield.

Westcott settled in nicely and needed just 32 pitches to keep the Senators at bay from the third through the seventh inning.  However, things went awry for Westcott and the Squirrels in the eighth inning as the Senators mounted the game-winning rally.  An error opened the door as Daniel Mayora threw errantly on a one-out grounder to third base from Jeff Kobernus.  Chris Rahl followed with an infield-single to put two runners aboard.  Westcott then got ahead of left-handed batting Tim Pahuta.  However, Pahuta tripled through the alley in right-center field, plating the decisive runs.

Westcott (3-3) took the loss over 7 1/3 innings.  He was charged with four runs – three earned – on seven hits.  He walked one and struck out two.  Demny did not factor in the decision over six innings.

Harrisburg right-hander Marcos Frias (1-2) worked two scoreless innings of relief following Demny for the win.  Righty Christian Garcia finished the win with a perfect ninth inning and earned his fifth save of the season.  Garcia and the Senators had to wait through a 14-minute delay in the ninth when the lights went out at The Diamond due to a power surge.  When the lights came back up, Garcia struck out Chris Dominguez to complete the ballgame.

The three-game series continues with game two at The Diamond on Wednesday night at 6:35 PM.  Richmond LHP Jason Stevenson (1-4, 6.69) will make the start opposite Harrisburg RHP Jeff Mandel (3-2, 3.89). Tickets are available and can be purchased at SquirrelsBaseball.com. Pregame coverage will begin at 6:05 PM on Sports Radio 910 and SportsRadio910.com.

In game one, Salem led 2-zip on Sean Coyle’s two-run bomb just two batters into the game. Jackie Bradley Jr. led off with a line drive double before Coyle unloaded on Mike Rayl’s delivery, depositing his fifth jack of the season over the fence in left. Miguel Celestino dealt a perfect first and struck out the leadoff batter in the second, but Carolina’s Jeremie Tice launched a solo shot to left to slice the gap in half. Jake Lowery followed the homer with a single, scoring two batters later on Anthony Gallas’ RBI knock that tied the score at two. The Mudcats loaded the bases with two outs, but were unable to take the lead as Tony Wolters skied to left to end the threat.

On the cusp of falling behind, the Sox countered and scored five times in the top of the third. Rayl walked a pair and hit another to load the bases with two outs, setting up Michael Almanzar’s two-run double that made it 4-2. Shannon Wilkerson followed by singling home two more runs to lift the Sox to a 6-2 lead, and Wilkerson scurried home on a throwing error by Lowery to complete the five-run frame, surging Salem to a 7-2 cushion.

An unearned run in the top of the fifth gave the Sox a six-run lead, but the Mudcats would not go down quietly. Three straight Carolina hitters reached to begin the fifth, knocking Celestino from the game after the score had been trimmed to 8-4. Marco Duarte entered and immediately was taken deep by Carlos Moncrief, a two-run shot for the Mudcats right fielder, bringing Carolina within two. But Duarte held that advantage through the sixth, allowing Mike Olmsted to enter and earn his seventh save of the season by dealing a scoreless seventh.

Almanzar, Wilkerson, and Adalberto Ibarra all finished 2-for-4, while Wilkerson led the way with three RBI. The win lifted the Sox to 20-14 on the year, six games above .500 for the first time in 2012.

Unfortunately, that record was short-lived, as the Mudcats overcame an early 1-0 deficit in the nightcap to rally for the retaliatory victory. For the 11th time in his last 12 games, Bradley reached safely in the first inning, tripling to open the top of the first against Mudcats starter Dale Dickerson. Three batters later, Almanzar’s infield single brought him home to put Salem on top in the first.

The Mudcat pitchers would hold the Sox to just one more hit after the first inning, though, and Carolina surged in front with a three-run third against Salem starter Brandon Workman. Moncrief drew a two-out walk, stole second, and scored on Jesus Aguilar’s single to center. With the score tied at one, Tice blasted his second homer of the doubleheader, a two-run shot that gave Carolina a lead it would not relinquish. In the last of the sixth, the Mudcats added an unearned insurance tally against reliever Jeremiah Bayer.

J.D. Reichenbach grabbed the victory in game two, permitting just one hit over three scoreless innings of relief for Carolina. Jose Flores matched Olmsted by swiping his seventh save, while Workman suffered his first Carolina League loss, falling to 2-1 on the year.

The Red Sox return to Five County Stadium on Wednesday night for a 7:15 start in game three of the four-game series. Ryan Pressly is slated to start again Carolina’s Will Roberts.

The runs were even more scarce than the opportunities thanks to two great pitching performances by the ‘Cats and Rocks staffs. The starters Gus Schlosser and Santiago Garrido were exceptional in the battle. The sole mistake was made by Garrido in the top of the fifth on a 1-0 fastball. Robby Hefflinger blasted the pitch to nearly straightaway center field. The homer was Hefflinger’s third of the season and first in nearly 100 at-bats.

That would be all Schlosser needed in his seven innings. Mainly due to him setting down 14 in a row from the last to in the third through the seventh inning.

The lone trouble the ‘Cats staff ran into was in the 8th with Caleb Brewer on the mound. He would load the bases on a double, a walk and an intentional walk after falling behind 3-0 in the count. Juan Jamie would enter to face Brett Eibner with the bases loaded, but Jamie had too much gas and blew Eibner away to end the inning. Jamie would close out the game for his sixth save of the season.

Gus Schlosser (4-2) went seven innings, walking one and fanning three while allowing three hits. The tough-luck loss goes to Santiago Garrido (0-1). He scattered six hits, walked one and sat down four in six innings. It was the solo blast that would prove to be the only run–and the difference–in the game.

Game three of four is set for tomorrow at 6:05 pm. On the mound Lynchburg will send their only lefty starter Dimasther Delgado (1-1, 3.38) to the mound on Wednesday. Righty Greg Billo (3-3, 5.33) will take on the Braves’ 18th-rated prospect. Gates will open tomorrow at 5:00 pm at Lynchburg City Stadium. If you can’t make it to the park, tune in and listen live to all the action on 105.5 FM KD Country and online at lynchburg-hillcats.com starting with the Hillcats On-Deck Show coming on the air at 5:40pm with Erik Wilson and Mike Viso.