by Cole Gray | Mar 3, 2017 | News Slider, Sports
Conference Player of the Year Dallas Moore and the North Florida Ospreys’ array of shooters proved too much to handle for the Lipscomb men’s basketball team on Thursday night, felling the Bisons 91-85 in the ASUN semifinal at Allen Arena. The Ospreys were scorching-hot from deep all night, making 12-of-14 threes in the first half and 16-of-24 total. Senior Aaron Bodager and ASUN All-Freshman Team guard Garrett Sams drilled nine-of-11 from behind the line. Moore, Osborn Blount and Aaron Horne each added a pair of triples for North Florida, which led 45-32 at the half. “That was a tough mental hurdle for us,” Lipscomb head coach Casey Alexander said. “They played with great confidence; they got great shots; they buried shots. The hole that we got in was really tough to get out of.” Lipscomb did not lead at any point in the game. Though the Bisons keyed in on Moore — he scored 39 points at Allen Arena on Feb. 16 — the back-to-back ASUN Conference Player of the Year was able to find his teammates open behind the three-point line all night. North Florida head coach Matthew Driscoll lauded his star point guard’s ability to adapt to different defensive strategies. “He became more aggressive; he started going downhill more; he started going to the lane more to get into his floater game and get kick-outs,” Driscoll said. “Believe it or not, sometimes you have to tell these guys how special they really are.” Six of Moore’s seven assists led to made three-pointers. The teams traded baskets in the second half, with Lipscomb attempting to mount scoring runs...
by Charissa Ricker | Mar 3, 2017 | News Slider
The International Justice Mission, an on-campus group dedicated to raising awareness for human trafficking, hosted “Slavery Still Exists” Tuesday night in Stowe Hall. The event happened only a few days after the popular End It Movement took over social media, where participants post pictures and show a red “X” on their hand to combat slavery. After offering the first-look screening of the movie Priceless in the fall, Lipscomb welcomed Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) agent Jason Wilkerson and End Slavery Tennessee advocate Jill Rutter to speak more on human trafficking. “Very recently the TBI got jurisdiction over human trafficking,” Wilkerson said. “TBI agents can go hunt human traffickers and look for victims of our own volition.” Unlike the police, the TBI is only called into cases when there is specific need, and the attorney general requests their presence. Now that all cases dealing with human trafficking fall under the TBI, the agents can freely investigate any suspected situations. “On our own, without asking anybody, we just go after it ourselves,” Wilkerson said. “I am part of the unit that does that. I have been with TBI a little over 20 years.” Agent Wilkerson discussed the different types of human trafficking cases that happen in Tennessee and dispelled some common Hollywood enhanced myths. After Wilkerson explained the law enforcement side of ending human trafficking, Jill Rutter talked about how End Slavery Tennessee helps rehabilitate victims of slavery. “The most important thing I do as far as advocacy is to try to make sure that all of you realize that it happens here in the United States just as much as...
by Brooke Dorris | Mar 2, 2017 | News Slider
When Lipscomb’s Gary Wilson was a student at Harding studying to be the Lipscomb Choral Director he is today, he never knew what kind of impact Dr. Cliff Ganus, his professor and mentor, would have on his life. “Dr. Cliff Ganus was my collegiate choral conductor and mentor,” Wilson said. “I wanted to do something with him to honor our professional relationship and friendship. He’s also about to start his 50th year at Harding, and this joint concert seemed like a good way to do that.” They have now been able to celebrate that mentorship and friendship by combining their two choirs for a performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana over the span of two weekends. “Cliff and I talked about pieces we might do together that neither of us would do alone,” Wilson said. “Carmina needs a large choir of about 100 to be effective, and both of us wanted to do it, and it seemed like a logical choice for this concert.” On February 19, the Harding University choir made the trip from Searcy, Arkansas, to perform at Lipscomb. The concert featured choirs from both Lipscomb and Harding, a full orchestra and the children’s choir from Lipscomb Academy. “It was miraculous!” Wilson said. “Think about it: two choirs with two conductors at Lipscomb, another choir and conductor at Harding, part of the orchestra that I rehearsed for a couple of weeks and the full orchestra that I rehearsed for about one and a half hours before the choir arrived. We basically ran straight through the piece one time before the performance, but everyone was well prepared, and...
by Erin Franklin | Mar 2, 2017 | News Slider, Sports
Tennis player Alejandro Manzanares scanned the room as he walked in, alert to his surroundings yet eager to sit down and share his story — traits he’s acquired from growing up in Caracas, Venezuela, considered to be the most dangerous city in the world due to its high murder rate. The junior international business major came to Lipscomb his freshman year after being recruited by tennis coach Mario Hernandez. He was the No. 1 player in Venezuela in the 18 and under division and was in Hernandez’s second class of recruits. “He’s been one of our best recruits, highest-ranked internationally and one of our best performers,” Hernandez said. “He plays very tough, disciplined tennis. Not flashy, but really solid.” The athlete had never set foot on campus before arriving for move-in day, yet said his plan had always been to come to the United States for college. “I never had much to do with my recruiting,” Manzanares said. “I just talked to the coach twice, signed two papers, and then, there you go, I’m at Lipscomb. I just showed up on move-in day. You come here, and everything is nice. Everything is clean. You can’t really complain about anything.” Although he had traveled to the States before and was familiar with the country, he noted that coming to the school was still a big jump from what he was used to back home. “I’d been in the U.S. a couple times, but Lipscomb is very different,” Manzanares said. “Like very, very different. Venezuela is just a mess right now. I, honestly . . . I wouldn’t go back today,...
by LeBron Hill | Feb 28, 2017 | News Slider, Sports
Over the weekend, Lipscomb baseball hosted the Mule Mix Classic and took home a winning record of 2-1, beating Northwestern and Bowling Green while coming up short against Missouri State. The Bisons first faced Bowling Green and did not have a problem handling the Falcons. The game was low-scoring, with only two runs that were both scored by the Bisons. Brady Puckett was on the mound for the Bisons, pitching a complete game. The Bisons beat the Falcons 2-0. Up next was the Missouri State team. The Bisons were ahead by the fourth inning but the Bears took the lead in the sixth. By the start of the eighth inning, the Bisons were down 4-3. Because of a home run hit by Michael Gigliotti, the Bisons tied the game 4-4 and headed into extra innings. By the end of the 11th inning, the Bisons failed to score two men on base and lost to the Bears 6-4. The last game of the tournament was against the Northwestern Wildcats. The game showcased ten pitchers in total on the mound. The game had nine pass balls and wild pitches. “We get used to playing three games in a row,” head coach Jeff Forehand said. “It’s something that is not unusual for them.” The Wildcats came into the game with a record of 0-5. At the top of the second inning, the Wildcats took a 2-0 lead. The Bisons came back in the bottom of the second, scoring six runs to take a 6-2 lead. In the top of the seventh, Northwestern’s Matt Hopfner hit a Grand Slam, making the score 8-6. The Bisons were able to stack more runs onto their...
by Olivia Waldorf | Feb 28, 2017 | News Slider
Using analogies to express the existence of God, chapel speaker Rubel Shelly presented Tuesday in Allen Arena. Shelly began with the image of walking through a forest. He projected an image on screen of a camping sight featuring tents, chairs and a fire. Rubel expressed that the image shown invites human activity. He attributed what someone might do to this scene in real life to the “clearing of our cosmos,” saying that this world was already set up for human interaction and the world’s population is just invited to live in it. “Things don’t just happen on their own,” Shelly said. “There have been many scientists and theologians that have tried to disprove the existence of God, but have come to realize how many things we can’t describe, which helps in proving the help of a higher being.” Rubel shared the story of Paul from the Old Testament. He spoke of how a supposed invisible God created visible things. According to Rubel, science takes things that are visible; religion deals with the invisible. “The more people discover, the more natural explanations there are,” he said. “But these explanations come with the things we can’t explain, which points towards a higher power such as God. “This world didn’t happen by itself. There has to be an intelligence behind it. Human brotherhood is a miracle.” Rubel called the audience to explore God’s creation, saying that this is what Christians are called to do from the beginning. According to Rubel, no matter how advanced science has become, there are certain things it will never be able to define as they suggest invisible...
