
Brunelle Announces ACC Selection
Editor’s Note – The headline in January read, ‘Will Samantha Brunelle Find A Home In The ACC?’
Patrick Hite’s earlier story wondered where the 2019 top recruit would seek her next challenge. The list of 30 offers, which was pared down to nine teams, included five from the Atlantic Coast Conference. Overall, this began to favor a school from the conference.
And indeed those odds did favor an ACC team. Sunday, Brunelle, along with her teammates, revealed that she will join Coach of the Year, Muffet McGraw.
Hite spent the weekend attending the Virginia Press Association Awards banquet in Richmond. He worked in, on his way home, a trip to cover Brunelle’s announcement late Sunday afternoon. Here is that story.
Top junior Sam Brunelle chooses Notre Dame
Special From News Leader/Patrick Hite –
STANARDSVILLE – The rich keep getting richer.
Following a national championship in women’s basketball this year, Notre Dame will be getting the best high school junior in the country.
Sam Brunelle, a standout for William Monroe High School in Greene County, announced Sunday afternoon that she will be attending Notre Dame after she graduates high school in 2019.
Earlier this year Brunelle narrowed her list of colleges to nine, including ACC schools Virginia, Wake Forest, N.C. State, Duke, and Notre Dame. Also on the list were Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland, and South Carolina.
For those who don’t follow women’s college basketball closely, that’s the elite of the elite. Besides Notre Dame winning the title this season, South Carolina won the championship in 2017 and UConn was the champion the four years before that, winning it all from 2013 through 2016.
Brunelle Announces ACC Selection – Read More
Patrick Hite – Patrick is a sports writer and multi-media host (vlog/podcast) for the News Leader in Staunton, VA.
Hite has covered the ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament, All-American Soap Box Derby and the NCAA Division I-AA National Football Championship. Plus, a tee-ball game on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C.
Patrick has written two books including “Mad About U: Four Decades of Basketball at University Hall” with Chris Graham and his most recent, “The Staunton Streak: Paul Hatcher’s Basketball Dynasty“.
Hite originated ACC Nation (radio show, website, blog and podcast) in the mid-2000’s.
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Proud to announce I have committed to Coach McGraw and University of Notre Dame?? Go Irish!!? pic.twitter.com/kIf8ypHGaw
— Samantha Brunelle (@babybruney33) April 15, 2018