COLUMBIA, S.C. (Feb. 14, 2026) – Sometimes the biggest wins are determined by the smallest things. You can ask Lander University teammates Matthew Knopp and Logan Russell about that, because their shiny new Columbia PFG College Fishing Presented by Abu Garcia National Championship trophies are the direct result of some small things that produced giant results.
Leaning heavily on a 3/4-inch-thick dice bait throughout the week and capitalizing on a couple of subtle final-day adjustments that helped them improve on their Day 2 bag by 2 1/4 pounds, Knopp and Russell sacked up 23 pounds, 10 ounces Saturday to boost their three-day total to 70-10 and claim the 2026 National Championship on Lake Murray.
The Lander duo will take the Natty trophies for a 55-mile ride west to campus in Greenwood, South Carolina, after outpacing James Dubose and Dylan Milam of the University of Montevallo (69-7) and Nolan Gray and Riley Brown of Carson-Newman University (67-12). The Montevallo duos of Brennan Berglund and Colton White (67-11) and Brody Robison and Peyton Sorrow (67-10) rounded out a tightly bunched Top 5.
“We really didn’t know what to expect this week,” Russell admitted. “(Days 1 and 3) are the two biggest bags I’ve ever weighed in my life. When we qualified at Lake Hartwell (in 2025) to fish this event, knowing that Lake Murray was so close to home, I thought, ‘We really need to try hard’. We’ve spent so many hours out on that lake, almost every weekend. It finally paid off.”
LINK TO HD VIDEO: HIGHLIGHTS – College Fishing National Championship Day 3
LINK TO WEIGH-IN PHOTO GALLERY: Lander triumphs on home waters at the National Championship
LINK TO AFTERNOON PHOTO GALLERY: Fishing for the win on a tense final day of the National Championship
LINK TO MORNING PHOTO GALLERY: Top 10 set out for Championship Saturday on Lake Murray
Russell and Knopp started the week knowing that their entire tournament would hinge on their ability to capitalize on “sneaky spots” where pressure was more manageable than main-lake go-tos – no small feat considering the amount of attention that Lake Murray receives from both locals and the 150-plus college teams in the tournament.
They started off at a stout pace on Day 1, shaking various sizes of Hideup Coike Creature Bait around docks, stumps, grass, cane and brushpiles to the tune of 25-10 – a 5-pound average that put them in fifth place on a day where 14 bags of 23 pounds or more hit the scales. Day 2 was noticeably tougher for most of the field, including Russell and Knopp.
“Day 2 was a struggle,” Knopp said. “We just couldn’t make it work like we had on Day 1. It was a roller coaster of emotions. I cast to a brushpile and hooked one that we knew was a good one with about 15 minutes left. That fish came out of the water and did a flip – it was nerve wracking. It turned out to be almost a 6-pounder that gave us a 3-pound cull. That fish probably saved our tournament.”
The Lander duo finished Day 2 with 21-6 to climb to third, just 1-2 behind the LSU-Shreveport team of Levi Thibodaux and Miles Smith, but knowing that they’d have to make some changes to clear their Day 2 funk and position themselves for a run at the National Championship on the final day.
“We kind of got lucky on Day 2 with that big fish at the end, but that last fish clued us in a little,” Russell said. “We definitely had to do some regrouping and rethinking, because we weren’t going to have a real shot at winning if we didn’t make some adjustments.”
Their key adjustments: pick up the pace and commit to more spots that they’d never fished before.
Russell and Knopp had dedicated the better part of their pre-practice free time in December and January to blanketing the lower end of Lake Murray, graphing and searching for any sneaky spots with enough nuance to make them less obvious than the standard stumps, boulders and brushpiles that they knew the field would focus on come championship week. They mentally committed to the Coike during pre-practice, rightfully predicting that Lake Murray’s fish would see a steady buffet of jighead minnows during the tournament, and collected an impressive amount of waypoints and options that they knew would serve them well in the Natty.
On Saturday, however, Russell and Knopp blazed through several new spots during a day-long run-and-gun blitz that saw them peppering as many likely looking brushpiles, cane stands, rocks, docks and grass clumps as they could.
“We knew that it was going to be hard to get the stump fish to go, because all of the stumps down there had been run though,” Knopp said. “We starting hitting cane and brushpiles and some spots we hadn’t fished before. One cast and go. One cast and go. One cast and go. We’d pull a 4-pounder off of a spot and go to the next one. The trick is just getting these fish to bite. Your boat has to be in the perfect position, and you have to make a perfect cast, because they’re so smart. You get one cast at them and they’re gone.”
The top 10 teams at the MLF Columbia PFG College Fishing Presented by Abu Garcia National Championship on Lake Murray finished:
1st: Lander University – Matthew Knopp, Mercer, Pa., and Logan Russell, Clyde, N.C., 15 bass, 70-10, Phoenix 518 Pro bass boat with a 115-horsepower Mercury or Suzuki outboard + $10,000
2nd: University of Montevallo – James DuBose, Sharpsburg, Ga., and Daylon Milam, Newnan, Ga., 15 bass, 69-7, Phoenix 518 Pro bass boat with a 115-horsepower Mercury or Suzuki outboard
3rd: Carson-Newman University – Nolan Gray, Russellville, Tenn., and Riley Brown, Whitefish, Mont., 15 bass, 67-12, $4,000
4th: University of Montevallo – Brennan Berglund, Zimmerman, Minn., and Colton White, Moore, Okla., 15 bass, 67-11, $3,000
5th: University of Montevallo – Brody Robison, Dawson, Ala., and Peyton Sorrow, Abbeville, S.C., 15 bass, 67-10, $2,000
6th: Lander University – Drew Kuhnle, Amherst, Ohio, and Landon Rollison, Greenwood, S.C., 15 bass, 66-15, $1,000
7th: University of Tennessee – Matthew Dettling, El Macero, Calif., and Cody Domingos, Knoxville, Tenn., 15 bass, 66-13, $1,000
8th: Carson-Newman University – Zach Wolfe, Mokena, Ill., and Brayden Ruckman, Freeland, Mich., 15 bass, 63-14, $1,000
9th: Emmanuel University – Michael Avery, Cumming, Ga., and Peyton Dunn, Fitzgerald, Ga., 15 bass, 63-3, $1,000
10th: Louisiana State University-Shreveport – Levi Thibodaux, Thibodaux, La., and Miles Smith, Houma, La., 14 bass, 61-6, $1,000
For a full list of results, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com.
Overall, there were 49 bass weighing 204 pounds, 5 ounces caught by the final 10 teams Saturday. The catch included nine five-bass limits.
In addition to the boat packages, both members of the winning Lander team – Knopp and Russell, and the runner-up team of James DuBose and Daylon Milam from the University of Montevallo now advance to the 2026 Toyota Series Championship, where they’ll compete as pros for a top prize of up to $235,000. In addition, the highest finishing team member between Knopp and Russell at the Toyota Series Championship will advance to REDCREST 2027 to compete against the world’s best pros for the sport’s top prize of $300,000.
Both members of the third-place team – Nolan Gray and Riley Brown from Carson-Newman University – now advance to the 2026 Toyota Series Championship to compete as co-anglers for a shot at winning a $33,500 Phoenix 518 pro with a 115-horsepower Mercury or Suzuki outboard.
Hosted by the Capital City Lake Murray Country Regional Tourism Board , the 17th annual College Fishing National Championship featured 151 teams of the nation’s top collegiate anglers competing for a $43,500 prize package, including a new Phoenix 518 pro bass boat with a 115-horsepower Mercury or Suzuki outboard, an additional $10,000 and the opportunity to advance to the 2026 Toyota Series Championship and REDCREST 2027 – MLF’s most prestigious championship – to fish for top prizes of $235,000 and $300,000, respectively.
“This has truly been a record-breaking weekend for Lake Murray, and we couldn’t be more proud,” says Vickie Davis, Executive Director of Capital City/Lake Murray Country. “It’s an honor to showcase our world-class fishery and passionate community on a national stage, and we’re grateful to MLF for continuing to choose Lake Murray as a championship destination.”
Proud sponsors of the 2026 MLF Columbia PFG College Fishing Presented by Abu Garcia include: 7 Brew, Abu Garcia, B&W Trailer Hitches, Berkley, BUBBA, Columbia PFG, Epic Baits, Mercury, MillerTech, OFF! Deep Woods, Onyx, O’Reilly Auto Parts, Phoenix Boats, PirahnO2, Power-Pole, Precision Sonar, Suzuki Marine, Tackle Warehouse, T-H Marine, Toyota, VOSKER and YETI.
For complete details and updated tournament information, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular College Fishing updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow MLF5’s social media outlets at Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.