BLACKSBURG — For the primary time in 18 years, the West Virginia soccer workforce paid a go to to Lane Stadium on Thursday night time to tackle Virginia Tech.
Regardless of the groups being outdated rivals, loads of Virginia Tech and WVU followers really tailgated collectively earlier than the sport.
In any case, some Tech graduates are buddies or colleagues with WVU graduates.
And a few Tech followers have WVU followers of their household.
WVU graduate Mary Hanson of Roanoke is married to a Virginia Tech graduate. Their three women attend Virginia Tech — not that Hanson minds an excessive amount of.
“The orange solely burns the primary time you put on it,” Hanson joked as she tailgated exterior Lane Stadium.
Hanson co-hosted a tailgate Thursday together with her pal Tiffaney Perhala, a resident of Texas and Smith Mountain Lake who graduated from Virginia Tech. The 2 have been buddies since being launched by a mutual pal at a Tech-WVU recreation 23 years in the past.
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“Now we have had a rivalry [between the schools] for thus a few years,” stated Hanson, who grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia. “We have gotten a foul rap and as a Mountaineer, I might like to alter that. We are able to all be buddies.”
Thursday was the final scheduled recreation between the outdated rivals.
“I might prefer to see them proceed to play,” Hanson stated. “It brings out the followers. All people loves it.”
Virginia Tech graduate Michael O’Neill of Moorefield, West Virginia, is the daddy of WVU college students Ben and Gracie O’Neill. He tailgated with a few of his outdated Tech buddies, his children and a few of his children’ buddies.
Household bragging rights had been at stake Thursday. Michael O’Neill stated his children may need to put on Hokie colours if the Hokies received Thursday night time.
“Final yr in Morgantown he was on one facet of the stadium and we had been on the opposite facet and the entire time we had been texting in our household group chat, speaking crap backwards and forwards,” Gracie O’Neill stated. “I’d say WVU’s largest recreation this yr was Pitt, however for us personally, it is this recreation.”
West Virginia beat the Hokies 27-21 final season in Morgantown. It was the primary time the rivals had met because the 2017 season opener at FedEx Area.
Final yr was the primary on-campus assembly between the groups since Virginia Tech paid WVU a go to in 2005.
Virginia Tech and WVU met yearly from 1973 by means of 2005. The groups was once Huge East rivals, however Tech jumped to the ACC in the summertime of 2004. The convention change was the primary purpose the collection ended after nonleague conferences in 2004 and 2005, though there was additionally a want by the faculties to curtail followers’ typically heated conduct on the video games. The groups didn’t meet once more till the neutral-site recreation in 2017.
“That is the most effective rivalry,” stated Michael O’Neill, a 1986 Tech graduate who grew up in Virginia. “We thumped UVa a number of instances a number of years, however the most effective recreation of the season was all the time the WVU recreation.
“Hopefully faculty soccer can get again to … yard rivalries.”
Andy Fox attended his first WVU-Virginia Tech recreation in 1966. The 1972 Virginia Tech graduate tailgated Thursday with a gaggle that included Tech followers and WVU followers — chief amongst them Fox’s brother, West Virginia graduate Kenny Fox.
“We could not get him into a superb college, so he went to West Virginia,” Andy Fox cracked.
The brothers grew up in Beckley, West Virginia.
“[The Tech-WVU games] was once one among my favourite days of the yr,” stated Andy Fox, who now lives in Florida. “I might take off Friday and cook dinner all day.”
The brothers want the collection would proceed.
“I want they might renew it and play yearly,” Kenny Fox stated.
West Virginia graduate Marvin Woodie of Bluefield, West Virginia, tailgated with a gaggle that included a colleague, Virginia Tech graduate Sean Weisiger of Midlothian. The group additionally included Woodie’s highschool friends, Virginia Tech graduate Bob McCord of Smith Mountain Lake and West Virginia graduate Roger Schwartz.
“After I go as much as Morgantown, there will likely be instances that I do not put on my Tech stuff as a result of beer bottles are inclined to fly in your course every so often,” McCord stated.
“In West Virginia, our household tree is a stump. There aren’t any branches,” Woodie joked.
The Tech followers had no downside hanging out with WVU followers.
“It is all good enjoyable. It is not UVa. It is OK,” Weisiger stated. “Now, if it was UVa, it would be a special story.”
“Our workplace might be combined 50-50, Tech followers and WVU followers, in southern West Virginia,” Woodie stated. “We all the time pull for one another once we’re not enjoying one another.”
Weisiger attended the groups’ memorable 1999 recreation at WVU. The Hokies received 22-20 on Shayne Graham’s 44-yard subject purpose as time expired.
“Shayne Graham’s aunt simply occurred to be sitting in entrance of me, … hugging me as a result of she will’t watch him kick that ball to proceed our undefeated season,” Weisiger stated. “I picked his aunt up and swung her round and he or she stated, ‘I suppose he made it, huh?’”
The Black Diamond Trophy was at stake Thursday night time. The sport marked the 54th assembly within the collection.
“[WVU leads] 29-23-1,” Schwartz appropriately stated.
Virginia Tech graduates Mary and David Hopkins of Nelson County tailgated with a gaggle that included their son and daughter-in-law — WVU graduates Perry and Felicia Hopkins.
“What do you need to guess? One sofa? Two couches?” Perry Hopkins joked together with his mother and father.
Virginia Tech graduate Curtis Moore of Louisa County not solely tailgated with two of his outdated Tech fraternity brothers but in addition with a colleague — WVU fan Ben Tatum of Louisa County.
“It’s a actual, actual rivalry,” Moore stated of the collection. “It is shut sufficient geographically that we should always play one another.”
“Yearly we should always play one another,” Tatum stated.
Thursday’s recreation marked WVU’s first journey to Lane Stadium since 2004.
WVU graduate Mikey Scarbrough and three of his friends drove to Blacksburg on Thursday from Fayette County, West Virginia. They took pregame photographs of the statue of ex-Hokies coach Frank Beamer.
“It is a good type of hate,” Scarbrough stated of the rivalry. “All people this is household. All of us get alongside within the parking tons — most of us do. However we hate one another on the sector, and that is what makes this recreation so large.”
