Archived Stories

2000 NCCA National Championships
Ohio University - Athens, OH
May 12-14,2000
by Paul Delong

     The story of the 2000 National Collegiate Cycling Championships (besides the parking nightmare otherwise known as the town of Athens, OH) was the overall strength of the ACCC men riders. Although the ACCC is one of the smaller conferences in the NCCA in terms of number of riders and teams, it dominated both Division I individual road races. The ACCC men were led by Rob Acciavatti of West Virginia who was 2nd in the road race, took the gold medal in the criterium and snared another gold as the best overall individual collegiate road racer.

     The ACCC power reared itself most prominently in the Division I road race over 5 laps of the difficult Hocking Hills course. Peter Baker of Virginia unleashed a tremendous ride to win the gold medal. With two laps to go, Baker broke away with Marion College racer Ryan Barrett, who also happens to hail from Virginia. Pete received yeoman support from Acciavatti, Appalachian State's Matt Decanio (another Virginian who finished 6th) the Hokies' own John DeLong (who finished 9th). These three controlled the chase group over the last 2 laps by riding constantly as a trio at the front as they allowed no solo bridgers to escape. On the last steep climb, Baker powered away from Barrett to solo to the gold. At the bottom of this same climb, Acciavatti rode the chase group off of his wheel and even caught and passed a tired Barrett for the silver. Decanio and DeLong finished in small pack of 7 that was sprinting for 4th place just several bike lengths behind Barrett. The Hokies' Mike Hickner, completing his first year of road racing, finished a commendable 57th out of 150 starters. In the Division II road race, another ACCC rider, Radford's Ophir Sephira parlayed his climbing strength to a silver medal in the road race.

     The next day's criterium was dominated by a crash that split the field, and by WV's Rob Acciavatti, who played the field like a tune. He soloed away from the sprinters in a classic move up the short steep hill in downtown Athens on the penultimate lap to snare the gold. Unfortunately, VT's John DeLong was caught behind the early crash. Although John did most of the work trying to pull the second group back to the first group, a linkage was never achieved. He finished 26th - failing to improve on his 1999 surprise bronze medal at Greenville, SC.

     The VT Hokies took their largest girls squad ever to the National Collegiate Cycling Championships and had their best results ever on a national level. The girls included team leader Shaunalee Bailey, who finished 23th in the women's criterium and Katherine Brown, who finished the women's road race for the second straight year (this time in 47th place).

 

 

Spring 2000 From the Darkside
10/3/00
by Burke Green, Ryan Callahan

 

     U. Va. Time Trial: Smoker wins, Burke wins, Ryan got 6th. Shauna didn’t finish; we think she broke a pedal or something. John almost crashed but didn’t. (Oh! We sent the ladies off to buy Subway!).

     U. Va. Road Race: The B’s and C’s raced together. Jason stayed away in a break for 2nd, Ben lectured the other teams on strategy, and Burke won the C race. The A’s raced Pro 1-2. It looked fast. John finished. The high point of the day came after the race when the Vermont team, as a whole, showed us their better halves. The women’s team got carried off by dragons except Shauna who got 1st in the women’s race (in conference).

     N.C. State: Very short, very fast crit. Getting there was difficult (Shauna tried to kill us in the vans and isn’t allowed to drive anymore). We had the loudest music. John tried valiantly but futilely to lap the field. Bryan got 3rd in the C race. Eric got 2nd in the B race. Laura Y. crashed but took it with gusto, finishing the race before getting medical attention. The A team was abducted by aliens.

     Mexico City crit: This was a hard race, although we don’t really remember it. We think Matt DeCanio probably lapped the field.

     Maryland: It was cold. Really cold. It was snowy and cold and early. Whose idea was it to have a race in the snow? Ben won the B race, Burke won the C race, and the girls did well. Here we really saw a lot of good teamwork. So much, in fact, that we got yelled at for it. The ladies from MD and the VT C team were close to a brawl. Oh, what’s that? You left the radio on all day and now the van won’t start? Well, let’s kill someone else’s battery too!

     Navy Crit: This raced just looked dangerous. Fast corners, rough roads, and a river made this race interesting. Josh crashed. Shauna won the women’s race. Laura got a TT start from Mr. Delong because of the sudden change of pedals. Then after Ben’s win the entire Men’s B team was stolen by dwarves. The food this weekend was the best all year. If you go to one race make it Navy. We love the Smiths.

     VCU Crit: It’s cold and wet! We had some awesome food and music at the Hispanic food festival. Andrew looked like he was having fun until he went sailing across the road and scuffed up his new bike. If you didn’t crash here you were going too slow (except Shauna who won the women’s race after avoiding a major crash). Nikolai rode on the sidewalk for a little while. All eyes were upon Alex as he finished the A race. Ben must have had a good time in his second race of the day.

     WVU RR: There were many farm animals that we had to deal with. Mainly a cow that wandered out during the A race. There were also oil slicks that caused many a crash. Coming back, the smoker got fuzzed by a state trooper. This race was really hilly and painful. We loved it. The race went through two states, we think they were PA and WV.

     VT RR: Ow. There is no such thing as a home course advantage. Matt DeCanio allegedly climbed in his big ring. There was also a cookout in the evening with burgers, cream pies, and doughnuts.

     VT Crit: Ryan won a prime, Burke won the C race, and that’s all I have to say about that.

     VT TTT: Where did everybody go? The Tech/Navy/Radford team beat the Tech A team by a few seconds. Don’t worry, they’ll train harder this year.

 

 

ACCC Final Standings
by Ben Lepene

     For the third straight year in a row the Virginia Tech Cycling Team cruised to victory in the Atlantic Coast Collegiate Cycling Conference overall team standings while garnering many individual podium finishes in the process. The combined team effort from  racers in each category made the win possible.

     The women led the charge for points each weekend with their largest team ever in Hokie cycling history. When the dust settled the depth of the VT woman's team was too much for the other ACCC teams to handle. Shauna Bailey finished in 2nd place overall being edged out by Christine Scott from UVA by only a small margin.

     In the A races John Delong was the go-to man with his support crew consisting of Andrew Olson, Mike Hickner, and Alex "Skeletor" Vavairs.  Andrew and Mike covered the early attacks while Skeletor kept the pace high early on in order to make the larger teams expend more energy organizing the chases.

     After a couple of races and a little instruction from the B-team veteran the B's slaughtered the competition with incredible team tactics that left the competition struggling for answers. Eric Fonville(GBM), Dustin Knight, Ben Lepene, Jason Mogenson, and Jessie Norris all reached the podium in at least one occasion in addition to winning the team time trial at the conference championships. 

      No one questioned Burke's desire to win.  Despite little racing experience Burke led the VT C class riders with a 2nd place overall finish while providing valuable leadership for the other new riders. Also, strongman Nikolai Braun was surprisingly able to keep his bike upright long enough to finish well in his inaugural road racing season.