Adrian College Wins School of the Year
Bulldog bass club earns title after strong finishes in four 2019 tournaments
The bass-fishing club at Adrian College is the best in the country, capping off the 2019 YETI FLW College Fishing season in first place overall with 2,350 points, and earning the team the title of 2019 YETI FLW College Fishing National School of the Year.
The National School of the Year title annually goes to the school that has the highest point total at the conclusion of the regular season. Points are awarded to the top two finishing teams from each school that competes in an FLW College Fishing tournament. The Adrian club secured the crown after three solid finishes in Northern Conference competition, along with a strong showing at the annual FLW College Fishing Open tournament on Kentucky Lake.
“To win an award based on the whole season – our entire body of work – is awesome and says a lot about our roster and our program as a whole,” says Seth Borton, head coach of the Adrian College team. “To win a tournament is great, but the National School of the Year is the most coveted award we can achieve because it means we had the best overall season.
“We’ve got 32 members in our club, and really good anglers in each class,” Borton adds. “We try to put our best guys for each situation in the right positions to be successful. We’ve got shallow-water specialists that do better targeting docks or fishing the banks. We’ve got anglers that are better fishing deep water, offshore, targeting spotted and smallmouth bass with electronics and finesse gear. We run our club just like any other athletic team.”
Perhaps most impressive from Adrian College during the 2019 season is the fact that 15 different anglers contributed to the top finishes, and no single duo was responsible for more than one.
“I always tell my anglers that when you get the opportunity, you have to be ready to go – for the team,” Borton says. “We are extremely fortunate to be as successful as we have been since launching the club in 2015, and I’m going to keep challenging our anglers – how can you help make us better, as a team?”
The Adrian bass fishing club was also recently featured on Rapala Varsity Bass, an original YouTube-based reality series produced by FLW. The series documents the lives of high school and college anglers just starting out in the sport of tournament bass fishing. It allows fans to experience firsthand what life as a student angler is really like and feel both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. The third episode showcased Adrian College anglers Nick Marsh and Jarrett Martin as they fought their way into the top 10 of the 2019 YETI FLW College Fishing National Championship on the Potomac River. The episode can be viewed here.
Adrian College 2019 Tournament Finishes
Northern Conference
April 26 – Smith Mountain Lake (95 boats)
11th Place – Blake Johnson & Myles Jackman
23rd Place – Jarrod Layton & Matthew Davis
May 31 – Chesapeake Bay (49 boats)
1st Place – Ryan Sharnas & Brandon Herzberg
4th Place – Jake Hippe III & Griffin Fernandes
Sept. 6 – Lake Erie (65 boats)
3rd Place – Ryan Sharnas & Chase Serafin
4th Place – Collin Torrey & Jacob Emery
FLW College Fishing Open
March 12-13 – Kentucky/Barkley Lake (194 boats)
5th Place – Alex Henderson & Zach Manneback
7th Place – Cody Batterson & Zachary Graham
Top 10 schools
The YETI FLW College Fishing National School of the Year title is determined by the total accumulated points from three regular-season conference events and the annual FLW College Fishing Open tournament. Three hundred points are awarded to the winning team in each tournament, 299 for second, 298 for third, and so on. Each school receives the total points earned by its top two teams in each tournament.
The top 10 schools in the 2019 YETI FLW College Fishing National School of the Year standings:
1st: Adrian College, Adrian, Mich. – 2,350 points
2nd: Murray State University, Murray, Ky. – 2,300 points
3rd: Bethel University, McKenzie, Tenn., 2,296 points
3rd: McKendree University, Lebanon, Ill. – 2,288 points
5th: University of North Alabama, Florence, Ala. – 2,280 points
6th: University of Montevallo, Montevallo, Ala. – 2,273 points
7th: Blue Mountain College, Blue Mountain, Miss. – 2,269 points
8th: East Texas Baptist University, Marshall, Texas – 2,257 points
9th: Radford University, Radford, Va. – 2,210 points
10th: Bryan College, Dayton, Tenn. – 2,186 points
Conference Schools of the Year Also Recognized
FLW also recognizes the top-performing school in each of its five YETI FLW College Fishing conferences with the Conference School of the Year award. The point system is structured in a similar way as the National School of the Year award, but points are only given for the three regular-season events in a respective conference.
Here are this year’s winners:
Southeastern Conference School of the Year
University of Montevallo, Montevallo, Ala. – 1,749 points
Southern Conference School of the Year
East Texas Baptist University, Marshall, Texas – 1,752 points
Central Conference School of the Year
Murray State University, Murray, Ky. – 1,761 points
Western Conference School of the Year
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Calif. – 1,761 points
Northern Conference School of the Year
Adrian College, Adrian, Mich. – 1,760 points