The Northern Virginia Community College annual sports banquet took place on the evening of April 29 at the Springfield Hilton Hotel. It was organized by NOVA’s collegewide Student Activities Coordinator Brian Anweiler.

The event began with remarks by Dr. Peter Maphumulo, provost of the Alexandria campus. He discussed the importance of sports within the overall NOVA experience, and mentioned that NOVA would soon be considering whether or not to strengthen its sports program.

Most NOVA graduates eventually work in such areas as in offices, in selling, as nurses or perhaps in an auto shop. Not Kris “Savage” McCray, 28, who smashes bodies and bangs heads in a cage ring in mixed martial arts.

Mixed martial arts includes striking and grappling techniques and appears to be a combination of boxing, wrestling, kick boxing, and jiu-jitsu. MMA fighting has become popular on network and cable television, such as on Spike TV, and on pay telecasts.

The NOVA men’s lacrosse team waited until the last seconds to edge the University of Mary Washington’s lacrosse team 11-10 on Saturday afternoon, April 10 on the UMW campus in Fredericksburg.

With five seconds to go and the score tied 10-10, NOVA retained possession behind the UMW goal as a missed shot went out of bounds. NOVA’s Thuc Tran threw the ball in and found Pat Roche just behind the goal. He went around the right side of the goal and threw in a close-in unexpected shot over his right shoulder, scoring the winning goal as time ran out. This gave the amazing 11-10 win to NOVA. To cap it off, this was NOVA’s first lead of the day.

Canadian author Denise Chong spoke about her most recent book Egg on Mao at the Annandale campus on the afternoon of April 8.
Her book follows the life of one of three persons, who during the Tiananmen Square student sit-in in Beijing, China in 1989, threw eggs filled with paint at the giant portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong in the Square. They were subsequently arrested, termed vandals and counter-revolutionary reactionaries, and sentenced to various terms in prison, from 16 years to life.

With the arrival of spring and warmer weather, car-related events become common. With automotive and auto body courses there should be some interest in car-related activities.
If you are interested in participating in, watching or perhaps just want to find out more about the particular cars you are considering buying, then the following list of car activities in DC and the surrounding areas should be of value.

NOVA’s men’s basketball team concluded its season by losing in the second round of the Virginia Community College System tournament to Tidewater Community College on March 12 in Roanoke, 95-73. NOVA had hoped to fare better against Tidewater, as it had lost two previous games to them by only two points in overtime. NOVA wound up 11-15 overall and 4-5 in the VCCS during the regular season.

The NOVA women’s basketball team lost a tough game, 53-51 to Tidewater Community College in the finals of the Virginia Community College System tournament in Roanoke. The team only scored two points in the last eleven minutes in the March 14 game at Virginia Western Community College.

The NOVA women’s basketball players joined the team to compete versus other teams, but the last two months have been mainly practices with only two games played due to various reasons.
The string of game cancellations began Dec.19 when the game against Cecil College was cancelled due to the big snowstorm. The team did play on Jan. 4 against the Community College of Philadelphia, losing that game. The Jan. 9 game at Southside was cancelled as Southside could not field a full team, and then the Jan. 13 game against the College of Southern Maryland at home was cancelled, as reportedly it could not field a full team, perhaps due to the awful season it was enduring.

The following are brief profiles of three current NOVA ice hockey players.

Chris Altice, a first-year student, plays Wing. Altice has been playing ice hockey since he was 12 years old and plays year-round. The first time he tried it, he borrowed skates and played for eight hours as he quickly became hooked on hockey. He thinks that, though the NOVA team had a rough start, it has good chemistry and will make the conference playoffs.

NOVA’s ice hockey team is in its second year playing in the Atlantic Division of the Blue Ridge Hockey Conference, a conference which has three divisions. Since last year they couldn’t compete in the playoffs, NOVA’s goal was to become eligible this year. In its division, they compete against four year colleges VCU, Catholic University, VMI, Radford, GMU, William & Mary, and JMU.