College Signing: Valle's Bumper Crop of College Athletes Grows; Briar Woods Sends Swimmers, Lax Players to College Ranks

Loudoun Valley senior baseball player Alex Owens is just  one of the many Viking athletes that will continue their sports careers in college. Owens will play baseball at Longwood. This signing ceremony photo from last week is courtesy of Carl "Mr. Focus" Lukat of the Loudoun Times-Mirror.

(Apr. 23, 2010) - What was a trickle of college signing news for local athletes became a flood this week as our unique VivaLoudoun.com College Choice chart has exploded with more than 100 athletes making their decisions, including some 27 athletes from Loudoun Valley, the largest school in Loudoun with more than 2,000 students this year.

We have also had some swimmers make their choices -- two from Briar Woods High School as Kelsey Atkinson is headed to sunny California and Pomona and Nick Mason is staying in the Commonwealth where he will swim for Washington and Lee. Both are NCAA Division III schools.

And the lacrosse players are moving up the charts with some 19 now headed to college. Among the latest we have added to the charts: Morgan Becker (Loudoun Valley/Liberty), Nina Dunay (Broad Run/Liberty), Shannon Harkey (Loudoun Valley/George Mason), Andy Luhmann (Briar Woods/Frostburg), Ashton Marshall (Foxcroft/Christopher Newport), Chris Rabung (Loudoun Valley/Pfeiffer), Patrick Ristau (Episcopal/Saint Joseph's), Alex Sharrer (Loudoun Valley/Frostburg), Kevin Sherman (Notre Dame/Ithaca), Michelle Zakrzewski (Loudoun Valley/IUP), Derek Zook (Loudoun Valley/Loyola) and Dylan Zook (Loudoun Valley/Stevenson).

So we are at 104 athletes and counting ...