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W AITING A YEAR to go to nationals didn't bother Glenna Kassel one bit.
The Culpeper High School graduate competed in the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association's national championships at Murfreesboro, Tenn., last month and captured the fourth-place ribbon in intermediate over fences.
"I'm a little disappointed. I rode pretty well, but I could have been more precise," said Kassel, a rising junior at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg.
"The four days prior to the competition, I went to the barn and rode a lot of different horses that I hadn't ridden before because you don't know what horse you're going to ride at nationals, and I wanted to be able to adapt.
"I got lucky and was assigned the same horse I rode at regionals," she said.
Wildcats riding coach J.T. Tallon was pleased with Kassel's performance and thinks her future is bright.
"Glenna rode with confidence and with poise," he said. "She was the fifth rider to compete, and the judging was tougher because they don't know what will follow. If she had competed later, she probably would have finished higher and might have won."
Kassel was one of 18 riders to qualify in her event after placing first at regionals and second in zone.
Kassel qualified for postseason intermediate competition based on the total number of points she compiled as a freshman. This season, she moved up to the open division and held her own, placing first in the first show at Radford University.
"It would have been nice if we could have qualified the entire team," said Kassel, noting the Wildcats lose only one rider to graduation. "We had enough talent, but things went badly for us."
Kassel has been riding since she was 9 years old. Her mother, Linda, is a longtime rider, and her older sister, Cathy Kassel-Geitner, is a former national runner-up at St. Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg, N.C., who now trains horses in Aiken, S.C.
McNemar leads VolsSophomore Sean McNemar (Culpeper) concluded his career with the John A. Logan (Ill.) College golf team with a flourish, sparking the Vols to a second-place finish at last weekend's National Junior College Athletic Association's championship match in Phoenix.
McNemar finished with a 72-hole total of 287 (one-under-par), two shots behind individual champion Steven Knight of Tyler (Texas) Junior College.
Logan finished with a team score of 1,187, which was eight shots behind champion South Mountain (Phoenix) Community College.
"Sean has made remarkable strides in the two years he has been here," golf coach Tom Ferris said. "We worked with Sean on his posture, swing plane and tempo.
"All that plus the experience of playing in a lot of tournaments on hard golf courses combined with his competitiveness allowed Sean to become a much better player," he said.
McNemar achieved both All-America and All-tournament team status. Last year he went to nationals as Logan's sixth man.
The former No. 1 seed for the Culpeper Blue Devils will continue his collegiate career next year at Southern Illinois University, where he will receive a partial scholarship.
Track stars fail to placeFour area track and field athletes saw their seasons end with somewhat disappointing results recently.
Neither Virginia Tech's Jason Fludd (Brooke Point) nor Air Force's Chris Banks (Culpeper) qualified for next week's Division I championship meet in Austin, Texas.
In the East Region meet at Gainesville, Fla., Fludd triple jumped 43-10 to finish 20th, and Banks placed 11th (49-3) at the Midwest meet in College Station, Texas.
Meanwhile, at the Division III championship meet in Decatur, Ill., Christopher Newport University women's 400-meter relay team that included Marquita Mines (Caroline) and Tiffany Moore (North Stafford) was clocked in 51.25, and Mines long jumped 18-2. The Captains failed to qualify for finals in either event.
Mozingo wins CAA awardVirginia Commonwealth's Harold Mozingo (Essex) was named the Colonial Athletic Association's rookie of the year by the league baseball coaches. The freshman hurler compiled a 7-3 record this spring.
To reach KURT NICOLL: 540/374-5441 knicoll@freelancestar.com