Five athletes from Albemarle announced their plans to continue their athletic careers at different colleges Thursday afternoon.
Sunny Gelnovatch, daughter of UVA men’s soccer coach, George Gelnovatch, announced her future at Messiah College in Pennsylvania. Gelnovatch will enter her second year on the Patriots’ varsity soccer team after spending her freshman and sophomore years on travel teams.
Griffin Coffey announced his intention to continue his soccer career at Washington and Lee University. Coffey has been in the Albemarle soccer program for four years now and has played soccer all of his life.
“All of my life I’ve wanted to play soccer in college, my brother played, so it has been a dream of mine,” Coffey said. “Finding the right school was kind of hard but Washington and Lee came up a few years ago and the fact that it is such a good school academically and the soccer team is really good made it the perfect fit.”
Three football stars announced their college decisions as well. Wide receiver Ethan Blundin committed to UVA as an invited walk-oin. In the past season Blundin made the first-team All-Conference, second-team All-Region, and the All-Scrimmage Play team. Blundin’s father, Matt Blundin, also attended UVA and continued on to the Kansas City Chiefs and Detroit Lions in the NFL as a quarterback.
JT Shorten will play at Washington and Lee next Fall. This past year Shorten was named a captain of the Patriots and anchored a dominant Albemarle defense at middle linebacker.
Nehemiah Lesesane, largely known as Nemo, announced Averett University as his future home. Lesesane, a first team All-Scrimmage Play defensive lineman, has been a fixture up front for the Patriots for several years.
