by Spencer Boehme | Oct 13, 2018 | News Slider, Sports
In an ASUN volleyball match featuring the surging Lipscomb Bisons and the struggling Jacksonville Dolphins, Saturday’s contest went exactly as expected. The Bisons (11-8, 6-1 ASUN) limited the Dolphins (2-18, 1-7 ASUN) to an average of 11.6 points per set in a 3-0 thrashing at Allen Arena. “If [Jacksonville is] able to get comfortable, it gets kind of tricky,” Lipscomb coach Brandon Rosenthal said. “[But] I thought we added the pressure right from the beginning, and we never let up from that.” It was a tough day for the Dolphins, who combined for a hitting percentage of .041. Junior outside hitter Mallory Mattingly led the team with seven kills, but she also committed 10 errors and posted a hitting average of minus-.083. “Going into this match it was just about [keeping] the pressure,” Rosenthal said. “We wanted them to change because of us.” The star of the game was Bisons senior middle blocker Ca’Layci Coffey, who led the match with 14 kills and a hitting average of .737. Rosenthal called her “one of the hardest workers on the team.” “When she’s on, she’s on,” Rosenthal said. “And (the) past couple matches she’s really been able to turn it up just a little bit more each time.” The Bisons started the day with a 25-13 win in the first set. The Dolphins kept it close at first and were only down 9-7 before Lipscomb broke away. Coffey led the way with four kills, and senior outside hitter Carlyle Nusbaum scored the set point on a kill that landed in the back of Jacksonville’s territory. In the second set, the Bisons...
by Spencer Boehme | Sep 25, 2018 | BREAKING NEWS, News Slider
In a surprising turn of events, two faces of the chapel office are bidding Lipscomb goodbye. Cyrus Eaton told Lumination that he and his wife, Nicole, are heading to Abilene Christian University, where Cyrus has been hired as the school’s next chaplain. “It’ll be very similar to what I get to do here,” Eaton said on Friday. “Except it will give me an opportunity to lead more initiatives instead of being focused on carrying out a few of them.” This is a fresh development that wasn’t a consideration until “about two months” ago, Eaton said. “We weren’t looking to leave, we weren’t looking for another opportunity,” Eaton said. “But a friend of ours put it on our radar and asked us if we’d be open to exploring it, which we felt like was a very safe thing to say ‘yes’ to. And over time, we realized that [the] thought of exploration was actually becoming more real.” The development comes just two months after Scott McDowell’s departure for ACU this summer. “I’m very excited to work with Scott again,” Eaton said. “Not only was it good working with Scott, [but] I’ve been mentored really well by Scott.” Eaton, the Joshua Project director, has teamed with Nicole, the Women’s Campus Minister, in various aspects of ministry. 2018 would have been Cyrus’s fourth full year at Lipscomb. He credits God for leading the Abilene Christian move. What helped affirm the decision was a gut-wrenching cancer diagnosis for Nicole’s mother, who lives in Houston. The presence of a brain tumor, revealed in an MRI, was discovered just four days after Cyrus’ ACU decision. “Even...
by Spencer Boehme | Sep 16, 2018 | News Slider, Sports
The Lipscomb soccer team came into Saturday night’s home game looking to put an end to a losing streak that had spanned three games. Instead, the East Tennessee State University Buccaneers (3-4) scored three unanswered goals to defeat the Bisons (1-4) by a score of 3-1. In the 19th minute, sophomore forward Ihaia Delaney knocked the ball into the right side of the goal without any contest from the goalkeeper to put Lipscomb up 1-0. Redshirt sophomore midfielder/forward Javier Leija was credited with the assist. Later on, in the 33rd minute, redshirt senior forward/midfielder Cameron Woodfin put ETSU on the scoreboard with a penalty kick that travelled thirty yards. The score remained 1-1 at halftime. Both teams each had three saves at that point. The Bucs carried the momentum from their first goal into the second half. They put Lipscomb’s redshirt senior goalkeeper Chris Zappia to work in the first ten minutes, where he registered three saves, two of which happened within just a few seconds of each other. After that, in the 56th minute, sophomore forward Danny Barlow extended ETSU’s lead to 2-1. In the 77th minute, junior forward Bruno Andrade knocked the ball in, giving the Bucs a 3-1 lead. Zappia was on the ground at that point and could not defend against Andrade’s effort. Overall, ETSU out-shot Lipscomb 14-11, including 9-6 on-goal. The Bisons had six saves compared to the Bucs’ five. The Bucs committed 12 fouls compared to Lipscomb’s 10. The Bisons will stay at home and host Kentucky on Tuesday at 7 p.m. Lipscomb head coach Charles Morrow declined a media interview after the...
by Spencer Boehme | Sep 7, 2018 | News Slider, Sports
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The school year is only a couple weeks in at Lipscomb, but Greg Brown is already conducting practice for the women’s basketball team. After a 12-19 season which ended in a 50-point loss to FGCU in the conference semifinals, head coach Brown’s team will return without seven seniors from last year, including Loren Cagle. The season doesn’t begin until November, but the Lipscomb athletics department recently posted the 2018-19 schedule; and it is full of enticing matchups. This includes road trips to Clemson, Cincinnati, Belmont and Georgia. “I think it’s just a great experience when you can go and challenge yourself against some Power Five schools on the road,” Brown said. “Obviously, playing on the road is important. And with new dynamics and new learning experiences, especially playing Clemson early on right there, will give us a great challenge to start.” Not to mention the home-and-away conference matchups against “LU” (Liberty University), an ASUN newcomer. As Brown jokingly put it, “two of us.” “Very well-coached; they have tournament experience,” he said. “I think any time you add quality teams like them and UNA [North Alabama], it raises the level of the conference play, and it pushes everyone to get better.” Indeed, if you look at the 2017 and then the 2018 schedule, you’ll notice that two newcomers, UNA and Liberty, make up part of a nine-team ASUN this year, versus the eight-team conference from 2017. This changes the no-man-left-behind tournament field that the ASUN had last year. “Not everybody goes to the tournament,” Brown said. “So that’s obviously something that you’re always playing for. And then...
by Spencer Boehme | Aug 26, 2018 | News Slider, Sports
The eighth-annual LUV Invite has concluded, and the Lipscomb Bisons (2-0) stand as the ultimate victors in the tournament hosted in Allen Arena. A 3-2 victory for the Bisons capped off the weekend, which featured visiting teams SMU and Iowa. “It’s great just to get that momentum from the start of the year,” Lipscomb senior outside hitter Lauren Anderson said. “And playing on your home court is incredible, too.” SMU (0-2) got the short end of the stick in the tournament. The Bisons opened with a 3-0 win over the Mustangs on Friday night. Senior outside hitter Carlyle Nusbaum and junior middle blocker Maddie Phillips tied for a Lipscomb-leading 10 kills. Iowa then took down SMU with a 3-1 win on Saturday afternoon. Senior outside hitter Taylor Louis provided the Hawkeyes with a team-leading 19 kills. The final contest proved to be the closest one of the trilogy. The Bisons carried most of the momentum throughout the first set, with the outside hitter Anderson featured as the Bisons’ libero. Nusbaum and sophomore outside hitter Megan Kuper both contributed four kills each for Lipscomb as the Bisons ultimately took the first set 25-13. This included a 15-3 run to cap things off. The Hawkeyes shut down the Bisons’ momentum in the next two sets. They controlled much of the second set, finishing with a 25-20 victory. Iowa also dominated for most of the third set, aided by six unanswered points when they were down 6-7. The Bisons struggled to prevent Iowa’s persistent kill attempts, and they fell 16-25. “I didn’t think we passed extremely well,” Lipscomb coach Brandon Rosenthal said....
