By Bryce Thompson
This week, Wabash Valley College is being represented extremely well at the 2024 Bassmaster National Championship on Lake Hartwell. Lake Hartwell boreders Georgia and South Carolina, and it's one of the Southeastern United States' largest recreation lakes. Five teams from Wabash Valley College are currently there in hopes of catching the biggest fish of them all, and thats the National Championship. In order to qualify for the championship, anglers must finish in the top ten percent of an event during the spring season, or be in the top twenty in points out of over 400 teams over the course of three events.
Today and tomorrow, Benny Blank, Blake Beckmann, Brogan Gregg, Caden Pearson, Dalton Phelps, Delaney Platt, Elijah "Eli" Jaime, Gannon Stork, Hunter Russell, Hunter Sandschafer, Nathan Kallstrand, Peyton Rose, and Ryan Olsen will all be getting to practice. On Wednesday, they will attend a championship banquet, with the tournament starting on Thursday. The tournament runs through Saturday. In order to be fishing on championship Saturday, you have to finish in the top twelve on Friday. Between Thursday and Friday, the anglers will take their best five fish of the day for weigh-ins, and there will see where they stand from there. Each day is an 8 hour day, so the anglers will be fishing from 5am-1pm central time.
The team fished the Legends Trail this year which includes Lake Murray, Kentucky Lake and Saginaw Bay.
Wabash Valley has three transfers this year from Southwestern Michigan College who are also fishing in the tournament. Those three are Delaney Platt, Ryan Olsen and Eli Jaime. Of the three, Platt and Olsen are fishing together. They will be fishing for WVC this semester.
Weigh-ins are live at 1pm each day. You can watch those live on bassmaster.com.
Below you will find a list of who is representing WVC, followed by how and where they qualified for the national championship.
Top picture is Hunter Russell and Benny Blank. They qualified by winning the Illinois State Championship
Middle left is Gannon Stork and Dalton Phelps. They qualified at Kentucky Lake in April
Middle right is Nathan Kallstrand and Caden Pearson. They qualified at Saginaw Bay in June
Bottom left is Hunter Sandschafer and Blake Beckmann. They qualified by being 14th in the Team of the Year Race
Bottom right is Brogan Gregg and Peyton Rose. They qualified at Kentucky Lake in April