A sampling of recent happenings, small updates, clarifications and corrections, and news from in and around Blacksburg (many of these items have appeared elsewhere, but you may have missed them or been confused about them):

Men's LAX Wins One, Loses One: The Tech men's club lacrosse team is still alive in the double-elimination national club championship tournament in St. Louis, through the end of the day Thursday. #9 seed Tech downed #8 seed Colorado on Wednesday, 18-16, but got hammered by #1 seed California on Thursday, 15-8. The Hokies lost to Cal by an indentical score during the regular season. The Hokies will take on #5 seed Michigan Friday, with the loser heading home. During the regular season, Michigan thrashed Tech 25-13.
Game report: Tech 18, Colorado 16
Game report: Cal 15, Tech 8

Softball Opens A-10 Tourney With Win: The Tech softball team downed Dayton 4-0 behind a no-hitter by Ashlee Dobbe. In an interesting twist, Dobbe, the runner-up for A-10 Pitcher of the Year, defeated the winner of the award in the game. The Hokies will play UMass Friday at noon.

DeMasi Getting Younger: center Steve DeMasi, the walk-on who was thrust into the spotlight after injuries to Keith Short and Tim Schnecker last year, will be a redshirt junior next fall, not a redshirt senior, as previously thought. DeMasi was incorrectly thought to have played in a JV game a couple of years back, which would have used a year of his eligibility for that season, but a review of the records indicated that he did not play. Regardless of how the battle for the center position turns out between DeMasi and Jake Grove, it's good to know that DeMasi (whose father has been known to post on the HokieCentral message board from time to time) will be here for two more seasons, not just one.

Hardee a Safety: speaking of walk-ons, there was some confusion for a while about whether Billy Hardee, a walk-on who worked at safety all spring, was switched to cornerback late in the spring. Many outlets, including HokieCentral, reported that Hardee had made the switch after Willie Pile staked a strong claim to the starting safety position. It appears, however, that Hardee is still a safety, as most Virginia Tech literature and mainstream media reports have consistently referred to him as a safety for a couple of weeks now. The coaches may have toyed with the idea of moving him to corner, but it appeared that Hardee was solidified at safety when Deon Provitt, who also worked out at the safety position this spring, was moved to whip linebacker. Got all that?

Provitt to Whip: Deon Provitt now calls the Whip linebacker position home, after getting looks in his short career at both receiver and safety. Provitt, who will be a redshirt freshman next season, needs to find a home, because bouncing from position to position is not good for a young player. It never lets them get their feet set and start learning a position, and they do nothing but fall behind. Speaking of which…

Piniella Gone: Derek Pinella, who pinballed around amongst four different positions in his three years at Tech and barely saw the field, has decided to give up football and transfer to the University of Florida as a non-football-playing student.

UConn to Join Big East Football in 2005, not 2003: We incorrectly reported here at HokieCentral.com that UConn will join the BEFC in 2003, but in fact, the Huskies will officially join the BEFC two years later, in 2005. The confusion came about because 2003 is the completion date of the new 40,000 seat Hartford Stadium that UConn will play in. And in fact, UConn opens that season with Rutgers in the new stadium. But for the record, their Big East Football Conference date is 2005, not 2003. The HokieCentral.com News and Notes article has been corrected.

Cassell Coliseum Finally Getting Upgrades: information culled from a recent Daily Press article by Dave Fairbank and an update in the latest Hokie Huddler reveal a plan for significantly upgrading Cassell Coliseum over the course of the next few years.

First of all, a video scoreboard will be installed at each end of Cassell Coliseum in time for next basketball season. The two Cassell score boards are actually grouped with the Lane Stadium video scoreboard as part of a $2 million scoreboard and sound system package for Lane and Cassell.

Secondly, the floor will be stripped and repainted (no doubt with some new Big East logos). And lastly, over the course of the next three years, all the seats in Cassell will be refurbished. Among other things, they will probably be repainted, but the Tech athletic department has not decided upon a color scheme for the seats.

Now, if they could just work on those bathrooms and concession stands…

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