11th Place – Blue Mountain College
SAN ANTONIO, TX (5/7/2020) – The final team of the week that we are going to highlight is Blue Mountain College. Located in northeast Mississippi, Blue Mountain is in its third full season as a bass fishing team. Coming off a 5th place finish in last season’s School of the Year race, Blue Mountain is currently in 11th for the 2019-2020 Bass Pro Shops School of the Year presented by Abu Garcia with 7,425 points.
“As a third-year team, it gives us a great sense of accomplishment,” said Shane Cox, Coach at Blue Mountain College. “Our team members set high goals early and have worked hard to achieve the status of being a respected name in collegiate competition. I’m extremely proud of them.”
In their infancy as a program, Blue Mountain College has burst onto the college fishing scene. During their first full year of competition, Ty Cox finished in 2nd place at the 2018 Bass Pro Shops Big Bass Bash presented by Berkley on Kentucky Lake. Later that same year, Rudy Worley & John David Nowlin won the AFTCO Collegiate Bass Open on Lake Dardanelle. That victory signified the first major win for Blue Mountain College at this level. And during the 2019-2020 season, Taylor Owens earned a Top 5 finish at the 2019 Big Bass Bash.
Blue Mountain team members put in a lot of hard work, and they are excited to see it paying off. “For our team to be ranked in the Top 25 means a lot to us. We work together all year to try to put our team as high as possible, and seeing Blue Mountain College towards the top of the standings just shows our school and coach we want it,” explained team member Isaac Duncan.
Entering the 2020 BoatUS Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship presented by Bass Pro Shops, Blue Mountain College will be considered one of the favorites to win it all. “The thing I am looking forward to the most in the Pickwick Championship is to have the chance at holding the trophy at the end of the week. With our school not being far from Pickwick, we like to call it our home lake,” Duncan added. The team’s campus is located less than 100 miles from the Waterloo area on Pickwick Lake.
Graduating senior Ty Cox is one of the many team members at Blue Mountain College with a lot of experience on this Tennessee River impoundment. At the 2019 Championship, Ty Cox & Chandler Boman finished in 4th place with a two-day total of 35.13 pounds. As we near the 2020 Championship, Cox is focused more on the magnitude of the moment, rather than worrying with the place number beside his name on the leaderboard at the end of the competition.
“As a senior, and with our season being disrupted to COVID-19, it’s so much more than the normal stress of competition this year,” said Ty Cox. “For me and many more, it will be a week to put the importance of past experiences and friendships made into perspective. I plan to enjoy every moment of being there.”
The 2020 Championship will be Ty’s final event on the Bass Pro Shops Collegiate Bass Fishing Series. Be prepared to follow all of our tournament coverage online and through social media for the chance to see on-the-water action from 11th ranked Blue Mountain College.
