Shippensburg University Wins FLW College Fishing Northern Conference Event on Maryland’s Potomac River
OutdoorHub 06.24.13
The Shippensburg University team of Kevin Hollasch of Marriottsville, Md., and Hunter Chamberlin of Shippensburg, Pa., won the FLW College Fishing Northern Conference event on the Potomac River Saturday with a five-bass limit weighing 13 pounds, 5 ounces. Shippensburg beat second-place Youngstown State University by 1 pound, 11 ounces. The victory earned the club $2,000 and advanced the team to the FLW College Fishing Northern Conference Invitational tournament.
“The tournament turned out to be a lot of what we expected,” said Chamberlin, a sophomore majoring in criminal justice. “We had a good game plan that we were able to stick to and it worked in our favor.
“I threw a 4-inch Senko all day, it just seemed to keep working for me, Chamberlin continued. “It seemed like I was catching one good fish every half-hour.”
The team caught a small limit early in the day, however, catching 11 keepers during the tournament allowed them to upgrade several times throughout the tournament. According to Chamberlin the biggest challenge of the day was the recreational boat traffic creating waves making it tough to maneuver and hold the boat in.
“I live just over an hour away,” said Hollasch, a junior majoring in criminal justice. “I came down two days for practice and started flipping docks and had a lot of success doing that so we made that our game plan.
“We started our day in the back of a creek and then when the tide moved the water out we moved to our next area targeting grass and docks. We hit about six to eight spots total throughout the day. I caught some of our biggest fish flipping a Bruiser Baits Avenger in green pumpkin and junebug.”
The top 15 teams that advanced to the Northern Conference Invitational are:
1st: Shippensburg University – Kevin Hollasch and Hunter Chamberlin five bass, 13-5, $2,000
2nd: Youngstown State University – Zachary Alcorn and Charles Cremeans, five bass, 11-10, $1,000
3rd: Virginia Tech – Corey Fox and Dylan Cooper, five bass, 11-7, $500
4th: University of Akron – Andrew Puhalik and Brenton Casto, four bass, 11-7, $500
5th: Grand Valley State – Justin Bruno and Scott Taege, five bass, 10-15, $500
6th: Radford University – George Fleming and Tanner Blanks, five bass, 10-10
7th: Penn State – Anthony Kashiwsky and Will Fennell, five bass, 10-5
8th: Virginia Commonwealth – Alexander Miller and Donnie Miller, five bass, 10-4
9th: Rutgers University – New Brunswick/Piscataway – Kyle Genova and Andrew Ridinger, five bass, 9-4
10th: Virginia Tech – John Stables and John Sanderlin, five bass, 8-5
11th: Ohio Northern University – Austin Hostetler and Cole Cochran, five bass, 8-3
12th: West Virginia University – Mathew Gibson and Edward Rude III, five bass, 8-2
13th: Radford University – Zachary Meadows and Austin Cox, five bass, 8-1
14th: Fairmont State University – Bryson Grimes and Ryan Radcliff, five bass, 7-10
15th: University of Connecticut – Grant Cunningham and Ryan Styrczula, five bass, 7-9
FLW College Fishing teams compete in four qualifying events in one of five conferences – Central, Northern, Southern, Southeastern and Western. The top fifteen teams from each regular-season tournament qualify for one of five conference invitational tournaments. The top ten teams from each conference invitational tournament will advance to the 2014 FLW College Fishing National Championship.
The next FLW College Northern Conference event is scheduled July 20 on Lake Champlain in Plattsburgh, N.Y.
College Fishing is free to enter and FLW Outdoors provides boats and drivers for each competing team along with travel allowances. All participants must be registered, full-time undergraduate students at a four-year college or university and members of a fishing club recognized by their college or university.
