LANSING, Mich. — The bass-fishing club at Adrian College is the best in the country, capping off the 2019 YETI FLW College Fishing season in 1st 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 year-end 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,” said Seth Borton, head coach of the Adrian fishing 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 continued. “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 went on to say. “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. Each episode of the series documents life as an angler that is 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 & Jarrett Martin as they fought their way into the top 10 of the 2019 YETI FLW College Fishing Championship on the Potomac River. The episode can be found at YouTube.com/FLWFishing [youtu.be].
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
The YETI FLW College Fishing National Team 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 their top two teams in each tournament.
The top five schools in the 2019 YETI FLW College Fishing National School of the Year Standings finished:
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. – 2,288points
5th:University of North Alabama, Florence,Ala. – 2,280 points
For complete details and updated information visit FLWFishing.com [flwfishing.com]. For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow YETI FLW College Fishing on FLW’s social media outlets at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram [instagram.com] and YouTube.
About FLW
FLW is the world’s largest tournament-fishing organization, providing anglers of all skill levels the opportunity to compete for millions in prize money in 2019 across five tournament circuits. Headquartered in Benton, Kentucky, with offices in Minneapolis, FLW and their partners conduct more than 290 bass-fishing tournaments annually around the world, including the United States, Canada, China, Italy, South Korea, Mexico, Namibia, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, and Zimbabwe. FLW tournament fishing can be seen on the Emmy-nominated “FLW" television show while FLW Bass Fishing magazine delivers cutting-edge tips from top pros. For more information visit FLWFishing.com [flwfishing.com] and follow FLW at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram [instagram.com], and YouTube.
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