Hidden Valley won its home opener Friday night, topping Lord Botetourt 36-30 -- and we have a
photo gallery of the night's action, both on and off the field.

At left, we see Titan fans Kelsie Houck, Mary Evans Callahan, Kate Akers and Kayla Radford.

Photos by Garland Gay

For more on the game -- plus other scores, stories, standings and schedules, see varsity.roanoke.com

Do you have photos from the game -- or any game involving teams or players in Southwest Roanoke County? Whether varsity, junior varsity, middle school or rec league, you can share them at news@swo-co.com

Got something to say about the game? Click "comment" below.

OTHER RECENT HIDDEN VALLEY COVERAGE:

* Sept. 5: Hidden Valley volleyball JVs defeat William Byrd
* Sept. 4: Hidden Valley cross country girls win
* Sept. 3: Hidden Valley volleyball JVs win over Lord Botetourt
* Photos of Hidden Valley’s fall sports teams

For more on the game -- plus other scores, stories, standings and schedules, see varsity.roanoke.com

Do you have photos from the game -- or any game involving teams or players in Southwest Roanoke County? Whether varsity, junior varsity, middle school or rec league, you can share them at news@swo-co.com

Got something to say about the game? Click "comment" below.

OTHER RECENT CAVE SPRING COVERAGE

* Sept. 4: Photos of Cave Spring volleyball JVs in action
* Aug. 30: Cave Spring defeats Staunton River in football
* Aug. 29: Greg Mackey is knighted as the Cave Spring Knight
* Photos of Cave Spring fall sports teams.

To keep up with the weather, see Kevin Myatt's Weather Journal.

And be sure to take a camera, too (a water-proof one!), and share some photos at news@swo-co.com

For details, see the latest post on Kevin Myatt's Weather Journal. Still, an umbrella or poncho might still be good insurance. And, as always, if you take photos tonight, you can share them at news@swo-co.com

If you anyone has photos from the game -- or any game involving teams or players from Southwest Roanoke County, for that matter -- you can share them at news@swo-co.com

OTHER RECENT CAVE SPRING MIDDLE SCHOOL COVERAGE:

* Sept. 2: Cave Spring Middle School falls to Read Mountain in volleyball
* Aug. 29: Cave Spring Middle defeats Andrew Lewis in volleyball

MW Windows Mountain Bike Race for Saturday September 6 has been Postponed !

For more information call 540-483-9293 or visit www.vaderailerseries.com

Tommy Maguire, head coach for the Cave Spring cross country team, and assistant coach Laurence Loesel have had many milestones in their coaching careers. The first is the simple fact they have been coaching together for seven years. The second is that Maguire and Loesel brought a cross country invitational to Southwest Virginia.

“We work our butts off the two of us. We’ve worked together for so long. The two of us are in charge,” Maguire said about himself and Loesel.

This year will mark the fifth year of their Knights Crossing Cross Country Invitational, which will be held on Saturday, September 13 at Green Hill Park in Roanoke County at 7 a.m.

“It’s an exciting event. We’ve really been trying to build it up to make it a premier invitation in the state,” Maguire said.

“We tried to work it so that Southwest Virginia could be involved. We go to Northern Virginia and the Chesapeake area and Richmond for invitationals. Southwest Virginia was kind of getting left out with hosting big invitationals.”

Sponsored by Cave Spring High School, Project 50, the Knights Booster Foundation, Roanoke County Parks & Recreation, and Fleet Feet Sports, Knights Crossing has been very successful over the years.

“Our first year we had about 300 people show up and mostly regional teams,” Maguire said. “The second year we had a little less. Then we started marketing to get more and more teams in there and we’ve steadily grown.”

The third year of the invitational hosted about 700 people and this year they estimate will draw about 1,200 people.

At the first invitational about 15 teams participated but Maguire said this year they currently have 46 teams signed up already.

“We’ve had some out of state teams commit, but because of fuel costs it’s been a bit of a problem.”

This year, three teams from Tennessee will join Cave Spring to participate in the invitational, one of which is ranked in its area as number one and the other ranked at number three. The girls' team will also participate, ranked at number two.

Over on Kevin Myatt's Weather Journal, Kevin says the forecast calls for some rain tonight and Saturday.

You might want to keep an eye on the skies -- and Kevin's blog -- and take an umbrella or poncho just in case.

If you go to either game, be sure to take a camera (a water-proof one!) and share some photos at news@swo-co.com.

If you stay at home, or want to check other action, we'll be posting scores, standings and schedules on varsity.roanoke.com. Then any photos we get, we'll post here.

Here are our most recent posts about Cave Spring, Hidden Valley and North Cross.

We've just updated our Roanoke Valley crime map with the latest offenses from Roanoke County -- and Roanoke and Salem, as well. The data includes offenses through August 31.

Last week in Southwest Roanoke County, police reported eight larcenies and one burglary.

Our data delivery editor, Matt Chittum, has more information how you can use the searchable crime map.

Also on our Datasphere collection of searchable data: Who's selling beer to your kids? You can look up to see which stores got busted for selling to underage buyers and how big a fine they had a pay.

Submitted by Amy Bennett, Chaplain
Cave Spring Rescue Squad Auxiliary

It was a two-fer for Hidden Valley's volleyball teams Thursday night. The morning sports pages of The Roanoke Times report the varsity won. Now we can report that the Hidden Valley junior varsity won, as well -- by scores of 25-21and 25-18.

The win improves the Titans' JV record to 3-2.

Do you have news or photos about teams or players in Southwest Roanoke County? Doesn't matter whether it's varsity, junior varsity, middle school or rec league, you can share at news@swo-co.com.

OTHER RECENT HIDDEN VALLEY COVERAGE:

* Sept. 4: Hidden Valley cross country girls win
* Sept. 3: Hidden Valley volleyball JVs win over Lord Botetourt
* Aug. 30: Hidden Valley falls to William Byrd by one point in football opener
* Aug. 28: Hidden Valley teams featured in print edition of SWoCo
* Photos of Hidden Valley's fall sports teams

We’re all looking skyward this weekend to see what, if anything, the cluster of hurricanes in the Atlantic brings our way. Assuming the games this weekend go on as scheduled, be sure to take your camera -- and then send us some photos at news@swo-co.com. As you may have noticed, if you share your photos, we’ll post ‘em here in full color -- and then run them in color in our print edition, as well (which reaches more than 90 percent of the households in Southwest Roanoke County.)

Doesn’t matter whether it’s varsity, junior varsity, middle school or rec league -- if you have photos that involve teams or players from Southwest Roanoke County, we want them.

In this week’s print edition, as with every week, we often say “see The Notebook” for more. Here’s a guide to the "more":

* Photos from the Lifewise Fitness blood drive
* Valley AFC Gators 14U boys win soccer tournament
* More than six inches of rain falls on Bent Mountain
* Head-on collision injures two on Garst Mill Road
* Photos of Greg Mackey being “knighted” at Cave Spring High School
* Photos from the Cave Spring Knights - Botetourt Cougars rec league football game (those are the Knights in the picture above.)

You’ll also notice we regularly post junior varsity and middle school scores. Our cousins in the sports department at The Roanoke Times publish varsity scores, but not lower age levels. We will, and we have. Here are the most recent results from Cave Spring High, Cave Spring Middle, Hidden Valley High, Hidden Valley Middle, North Cross and Faith Christian. We care about all sports at all age levels. If you’re not seeing your school’s action here, ask ‘em to send it -- or you can send your own report. Rec league, too!

So, how can you get your news and photos in SWoCo? Easy, we're at news@swo-co.com.For more info, see below:

Here is a team photo of the Valley AFC U15B Revolution taken at the DC United Tournament.
The team features five players from Southwest Roanoke County -- Mark Mercier, Michael Bier, Saim Mustafa, Daniel Rowe and Joseph Innacelli.

The full roster follows:

Bottom Row - left to right
Shane Tooley - Salem
Mark Mercier - SW Roanoke County
Drew Lyle - Salem
Jared Hundley - Troutville
Michael Bier - SW Roanoke County

Middle Row - left to right
Director of Coaching - Russell Dishman
Saim Mustafa - SW Roanoke County
Riley Finn - Salem
Daniel Rowe - SW Roanoke County
Joseph Innacelli - SW Roanoke County
Hunter Hart - Roanoke City

Upper Row - left to right
Head Coach - Bland Sigmon
Jordy Hensley - Salem
Michael Stick - Salem
Jeremy Rakes - Salem
Matthew Soderberg - Salem
Julian Hamner - Salem
Assistant Coach - John Farmer

Do you have news or photos involving teams or players from Southwest Roanoke County? Doesn't matter what level -- from varsity to rec league, from travel teams to sandlots -- if it involves kids from Southwest Roanoke County, we want to show 'em off in full color. You can share news and photos at news@swo-co.com

We had a previous post about Steve & Barry's on July 10.

The Cave Spring Optimist Club is offering $10,000 for whoever catches the heaviest muskie in its Oct. 3-5 charity tournament on Smith Mountain Lake. In his most recent column, outdoors writer Bill Cochran offers some clues as to where to target one of these money fish.

We've had previous posts about the Cave Spring Optimist Club and their fishing tournaments on April 24 and May 2.

And if you like fish, you'll like this post we put up earlier this week about a big catch.