As the 2022 calendar year kicks off, many of Lipscomb’s athletics teams are preparing for action this winter and spring.
In the spirit of the New Year’s holiday, here are resolutions each sport in action this semester might have heading into a new year.
Baseball
Resolution: remember the bitter taste of last year’s exit.
Lipscomb baseball might be the most underrated team on campus, and their difficult first-round loss to Kennesaw State in the ASUN Tournament was not a fitting way for their season to end. They lost 14-1 and 10-2 in a pair of blowouts in north Georgia after splitting the season series 3-3 with the Owls in the regular season. This year, the Bisons should have a chip on their shoulder to avoid a similar exit from the postseason in 2022.
The baseball season kicks off February 18-20 at Dugan Field when the Bisons host the Akron Zips on their opening weekend. Lipscomb will look to build on last year’s 18-29 record.
Men’s Basketball
Resolution: fix the turnover margin.
Gift-giving season is over, and the Bisons need to stop giving away possession on cheap passing errors and mental mistakes. The last time Lipscomb held the ball and were effective with their possessions was their last real success, a 19-point win over mid-major giants Dayton in their home arena. With conference play starting and star center Ahsan Asadullah returning from a 9-game absence for injury, now is the perfect time to limit the turnovers and score more effectively.
The team enters the new year with a tight win over Alabama A&M to up their overall record to 7-8, but they have some convincing to do when it comes to predictors. TeamRankings lists them as the second-worst team in the ASUN Conference, and numberFire lists them as the 275th-best team in the nation, good for third-last in the ASUN. The talent and potential is there for Lipscomb to succeed, but the turnover resolution will be paramount if the Bisons are to prove the doubters wrong.
Women’s Basketball
Resolution: score more points.
Lipscomb has always sported a fairly balanced offensive attack under third-year head coach Lauren Sumski, but the fact that no one averages double-digits in scoring for Lipscomb this year is troubling. Sophomore guard Blythe Pearson is closest with 9.9 per game, and the Kansas native has found plenty of offensive success this year, especially at the 3-point line. Outside of Pearson, though, Lipscomb’s offensive weapons haven’t been consistent enough to give them the points they need as a team. They’ve only cracked 60 points in a game 5 times, and 4 of those were games against non-Division I opponents. They’re only 1-7 when they score less than 60, so it’s vital that these ladies do their defense justice by scoring at the other end of the court when ASUN play arrives.
The women’s basketball team comes into the new year at 5-8 with just 1 Division I victory on their resume at Eastern Illinois, but the expectation of the players and coaching staff is to improve drastically within conference play. If the Bisons can improve 40% field goal and 67% free throw marks, expect them to finish in the upper half of the conference standings and find themselves deep in the conference tournament in March.
Men’s Golf
Resolution: crack the top 3.
A strenuous schedule in the fall saw Lipscomb play solid golf behind freshman Alejandro Rodriguez and Purdue transfer Jason Hong leading the Bisons to four top-half finishes out of five matches in 2021. Despite that success, the Bisons haven’t been able to find their way into elite status at any one tournament this year, with a 4th place finish at the Wolfpack Intercollegiate Invitational their best finish to date.
This team has the quality to deliver down the stretch this spring, but they will have to put together a consistent team performance. Rodriguez and Hong have help from Ford Goldasich, who led the Bisons in two fall contests and carded a 66 in his final round of 2021, and Will Holan, who joint-led Lipscomb at the Graeme McDowell Invitational in September. If all four have a simultaneously successful weekend, the Bisons will quickly become the team to beat.
Women’s Golf
Resolution: run it back!
By all accounts, fall 2021 was a special time for women’s golf. The squad earned 4 top-4 finishes in five contests, including 2 top-3 finishes and a win at the Terrier Invitational in Spartanburg, South Carolina. If the Bisons can match that level of success in their five spring contests, Lipscomb could well have an ASUN title to play for in late April–or even a national tournament appearance.
Multiple program records have been broken over the course of the hot fall season, and the center of them all has been freshman Lauren Thompson. Originally from Dothan, Alabama, Thompson set a Bisons record for the lowest-ever individual score in a round with a 68 at the Lady Red Wolves Classic. Thompson will be key to the Bisons’ charge for even more success this spring.
Softball
Resolution: rise to the occasion(s).
Last season, Lipscomb was supposed to play three top-25 opponents in a makeshift 2021 season, but all three games were postponed, keeping the Bisons from playing any Power 5 opponents last year. This season, they should have more opportunities to prove themselves against top competition, starting the year with three Power 5 matchups and hosting ACC schools Florida State and Pittsburgh during the non-conference slate. After an 18-18 season last year, Lipscomb should be poised to build on that .500 record, and they’ll have the chance to prove how far they’ve come against some of the nation’s best softball programs.
Senior infielder Amy Vetula should be an integral piece of what the Bisons put together in those big matchups. Originally from Canton, Georgia, Vetula started every single game for Lipscomb last year, leading the team in at bats with 120 and grabbing 25 runs on 40 hits. Vetula’s senior leadership should be just the extra push the Bisons need to prove themselves against Power 5 opposition and across their entire season.
Men’s Tennis
Resolution: take advantage of extraordinary experience.
Seven of Lipscomb’s nine players are upperclassmen, including five graduate students. For many of these players, 2022 represents their last chance at ASUN hardware, and they’re all capable of making it happen. Last year’s squad that won 9 games and went 4-2 in-conference only lost two players, so Lipscomb should have its best shot in a long time to reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history.
Longtime Lipscomb names like Pedro Uribe of Bogota, Colombia, Tennessee Tech transfer Gonzalo Garcia-Nieto, and England native Jake Penny will deservedly catch the eyes of fans, but the young blood in the team should not be counted out, either. Sophomore Carlos Salas Tulla impressed as a freshman with a 7-5 singles record while bouncing between 5th and 6th position for the Bisons, while Croatian Luke Stojanovic also showed promise, going 1-2 at the 1st spot for Lipscomb after transferring in from Incarnate Word two years ago.
Women’s Tennis
Resolution: win the close games.
After the 2019-20 season was mostly lost to COVID-19, 2020-21 represented a big bounce-back year in more ways than one for the Bisons. Last year’s 10-9 record was a huge improvement on the 3-9 record from the year before, but that record could have been even better had the Bisons found a way to win their close matchups. In four contests decided by a 4-3 score, Lipscomb won only one. Had they won the other three, the Bisons would have gone undefeated in conference play, but they still reached the 2nd round of the ASUN Tournament last season, losing to North Florida.
This season, the Bisons are on the brink of another big jump forward. Six nationalities are represented on the nine-player roster, including three seniors and a graduate student. That graduate student happens to be Kate Popova, quite possibly Lipscomb’s most prolific athlete of any sport on campus this year. Hailing from Kiev, Ukraine, Popova has been ranked as high as 1,081st in the world in women’s singles in her career, and enters her 5th year at Lipscomb with a host of on-campus accolades. She has been an All-ASUN selection every year and was also named to the ASUN All-Freshman team in 2018 as well as the ASUN All-Academic Team last year, collecting 56 singles wins over the course of her career at Lipscomb and never playing below the 2nd spot on the team. Behind Popova’s leadership, the Bisons could be poised for a program-defining season.
Men’s Track and Field
Resolution: capture some of last year’s magic.
Two words: Shane Streich. The now-professional runner for Atlanta Track Club set his ASUN competition ablaze after transferring to Lipscomb from Minnesota as a graduate transfer and reaching the finals of United States Olympic Trials. Now that he has left, the Bisons have reloaded and should still provide plenty of speed to compete for ASUN trophies and beyond. Eleven seniors and eight graduate transfers remain on a loaded Bisons squad that will challenge the best in the nation.
Adding to all of Lipscomb’s experience is a freshman class that has already made its mark in fall competitions. Ben Butcher, a true freshman from Dacula, Georgia, was named ASUN Newcomer of the Year after a high-flying first semester with Lipscomb that included a 26th-place finish at the Blazer Classic in Birmingham, Alabama. Butcher is joined by Andy Stohr as the two top freshman who will be significant additions to a Bisons roster ready to win now. Stohr set a personal best at the Live in Lou Classic by over a minute and a half, setting himself up for an even stronger spring season.
Women’s Track and Field
Resolution: use young guns to grab more accolades.
The women’s track and field team is fairly young, with just five seniors and a graduate transfer compared to 17 underclassmen, but that doesn’t mean the Bisons aren’t ready to win awards in the present. Mackenzie Barrett was named Freshman of the Year in cross country this fall, and there are plenty of fellow freshman ready to supplement the distance runner from Columbus, Indiana. Liza Corso, a fellow distance runner from Newmarket, New Hampshire, made Lipscomb history as the first Bison to compete in an Olympic event when she represented the United States in the 2020 Paralympic Games this summer in Tokyo, Japan. Three-time all-state selection Bella Jackson should provide a big impact as well in hurdles, but the freshman is capable at the high jump and multi events as well.
With the contributions of so many highly-touted freshman alongside senior leaders like McDonough, Georgia-born Madison Allie, Lipscomb should be in great position to improve on a season full of accolades last year. Under experienced head coach Nick Polk, the Bisons should be expected to compete closely for no less than an overall ASUN title.
For every sport operating this spring, 2022 figures to be an exciting time as the Bisons continue to assert themselves as one of the best athletics programs in the ASUN and in the state of Tennessee. Make sure to follow Lumination Network all semester long as we bring you coverage of all 10 sports in action to kick off 2022!
Photo courtesy of Lipscomb Athletics