by Tyler Harvey | Feb 28, 2019 | News Slider, Sports
The Lady Bisons have been eliminated from post-season contention following their 69-53 loss to NJIT. Lipscomb turned the ball over 24 times which resulted in 36 points for the NJIT Highlanders. The Lady Bisons came into the game hoping to keep their A-Sun Tournament hopes alive by winning their next three games against ASUN opponents. However, this loss officially eliminates them from any chance of making it to the tournament. “It’s tough when you see how hard they work and then to see it not get rewarded is tough,” Lipscomb head coach Greg Brown said. The Lady Bisons lost seven players due to graduation last year. This forced them to play with a very young team that included six freshman players. “There’s always a learning curve,” Brown said. “We always try to tell them you don’t know when it’s going to click. You just have to get better individually which will make us better as a team.” Lipscomb is also without a single senior on the entire roster. “Without seniors you know that the journey continues and that you’re building for next season,” Brown said. “You’re going to see…growth out of these guys (next season).” The Game The first quarter of the game was dominated by missed shots for both teams. The Bisons and the Highlanders each had a field goal percentage below 32 percent during the quarter. However, the Bisons had a slightly better percentage than the Highlanders which allowed them to lead 13-12 at the end of the quarter. During the second quarter, the Highlanders shot much better, making 46 percent of their shots from the field. Lipscomb...
by Russell Vannozzi | Feb 26, 2019 | News Slider, Sports
Lipscomb basketball honored one of its best senior classes in program history Monday night. That’s no disrespect to Marcus Bodie, Darren Henrie, Phillip Hutcheson and Wade Tomlinson from 1990 or Mark Campbell, Andy McQueen and John Pierce from 1994 or Adnan Hodzic and Josh Slater from 2011. This year’s group stacks up against Lipscomb’s best, and it might be the best. “It’s a different era, for sure,” senior guard Garrison Mathews said. “I don’t know what it would have been like playing back then. We’ve been fortunate to come out and win some games.” Make that 77 wins over the last four seasons, to be exact. The Bisons are in the midst of their third straight 20-win season. “I think it’ll be one that people remember for a while,” Lipscomb coach Casey Alexander said of the class. “The individual and collective accomplishments of [this group] are pretty impressive.” But this column isn’t meant to spark a debate – I’ll leave that for another day. The 2019 senior class put Lipscomb basketball back on the national map, and for that, they are worth appreciating and celebrating on their own, especially given the NAIA-NCAA discrepancy. The group of five seniors includes three 1,000-point scorers (Mathews, Rob Marberry, Nathan Moran) and two that came close (Eli Pepper and Matt Rose). More importantly, these five were instrumental in Lipscomb’s rise over the last three seasons, highlighted by an ASUN title and the team’s subsequent NCAA tournament debut against North Carolina in 2018. “If you really want to gauge what those guys have done, that’s where you have to look,” Alexander said of the...
by Grant Ledgister | Feb 26, 2019 | News Slider, Sports
Monday’s game began with a celebration of Lipscomb basketball seniors Matt Rose, Eli Pepper, Rob Marberry, Garrison Mathews and Nate Moran. The celebrations didn’t end until well after the Bisons left Allen Arena with an 81-77 victory over the NJIT Highlanders. Three-pointers were the name of the game for Lipscomb (22-6, 13-2 ASUN), as Mathews and Rose started the game with a trio of three-pointers to help the Bisons jump out to an 11-5 lead over the Highlanders (20-10, 8-7 ASUN) at the first media timeout. The threes then kept raining for the Bisons. Lipscomb never surrendered the lead in the first half and took a 39-28 lead into the break. Mathews made three shots from long range in the first 20 minutes and finished with six total three-pointers. “The past few games I’ve been shooting it [terribly],” Mathews said. “It’s kind of the time of the season where everybody’s tired, everybody’s sore. It’s tough. I just needed to get a little confidence back.” Lipscomb’s defense in the first half was also stellar. The Bisons forced five turnovers and held the ASUN’s third-leading scorer in Zach Cooks to three points. But NJIT made the game close in the second half. Even though the Highlanders got into foul trouble early in the half, they were able to close the gap to just one point with 10 minutes left. Soon after, the Bisons gave up the lead for the first time, and the game became a back-and-forth affair for several minutes. There were several moments when it looked like Lipscomb would open the game back up, including a sequence with a...
by Martin Baker | Feb 26, 2019 | News Slider, Sports
A long, wet weekend saw cancellations for the Lipscomb baseball team on Friday and Saturday, but the rain was followed by clearer skies and a doubleheader against Western Michigan on Sunday at Ken Dugan Field. “There’s gonna be wind, there’s gonna be sun, there’s gonna be [a] rain delay,” Lipscomb coach Jeff Forehand said. “There’s gonna be some factor in every game, and if we’re not ready to adjust to that, we’re gonna find ourselves behind the eight-ball in a lot of games.” Both games were high-scoring, but the first game ended in Western Michigan’s favor with a final tally of 17-5. The Bisons were down 12-0 going into the fourth inning. “You just don’t say anything,” Forehand said. “We had a conversation last week, and we feel like our offense is good enough that we can come back from any deficit.” The Bisons were able to put some runs on the board in the later innings, but it would be too little, too late. This would be the Broncos’ first win of the season, making their record 1-5. “You might think you come out in that game, and you give up 15 runs, that we weren’t ready to play,” Forehand said. “We were ready to play. They just played really well.” Cancellations and a hefty defeat in the first game didn’t shake the confidence the Lipscomb coaching staff had in its initial plans for these games. “We had it kind of scripted on what we were gonna do for both of these games,” Forehand said. “Right now, early in the season, we’re really trying to get as many...
by Russell Vannozzi | Feb 23, 2019 | News Slider, Sports
Lipscomb forward Matt Rose has a new job, and it doesn’t involve basketball. The redshirt junior recently accepted a spot in Merrill Lynch’s Financial Advisor Development Program, which he will begin this June in Nashville. He previously interned with Merrill Lynch in Knoxville last summer. “It was a really big learning process for me,” Rose said. “Being a basketball player my whole life, I’ve never been through the interview process like that. I did an internship with one of my dad’s friends and really liked [Merrill Lynch].” Rose decided before the school year that the 2018-19 season would be his last. The Samford transfer took a redshirt in 2016-17 to comply with NCAA transfer rules, and he’s now in his third season of eligibility but will graduate with a finance degree in May. “I’m glad he told us, but I was still surprised,” Lipscomb coach Casey Alexander said. “Any time someone wants to give up a year of eligibility, it’s always a little bit of a surprise, even though he’s got good reasons for doing it.” In addition to his job at Merrill Lynch, Rose is getting married to former Liberty soccer player Caroline Boone, whom he met while attending Lexington Christian Academy in Kentucky. Their wedding is set for July 6. “I thought it was the best decision for me and my fiancé,” Rose said of skipping his final season. “We’re excited to move on together, but we’ll still be around all the time to support [the team].” Ironically, Liberty joined the ASUN just in time for Boone’s senior campaign last fall. Jerry’s Jokers, the Liberty student section,...
by Adrienne Luu | Feb 23, 2019 | News Slider, Sports
The Lipscomb men’s tennis team was defeated 4-0 by Vanderbilt Friday evening at the Vanderbilt University Currey Tennis Center. It was the quickest loss Lipscomb (4-5) has had this season. The match lasted less than two hours. “I would never use it as an excuse, but I don’t think we were the most healthy [tonight],” Lipscomb’s head coach Geoff Hernandez said. “But I’m pretty pleased with what the guys brought in preparation for St. John’s (Saturday’s match).” The Bisons started the night down 1-0 when they lost the doubles point to the Commodores. In line two, Lipscomb’s Jorge Ortegon and Pedro Uribe were first to lose their set 6-1 to Vanderbilt’s Adam Sraberg and Christiaan Worst. In line three, Lipscomb’s Jake Penny and Michael Tougher lost 6-2 to George Harwell and Marcus Ferreira, leaving the No. 1 doubles match unfinished between Lipscomb’s Victor Chaw and Pablo Caffarena and Vanderbilt’s Cameron Klinger and Billy Rowe. After the teams moved onto singles play, Lipscomb was never able to get a point against Vanderbilt. Lipscomb’s Uribe, in line four, lost to Rowe 6-0, 6-4 to set the score at 2-0 in Vanderbilt’s favor. Next, in line three, Ortegon was defeated 6-2, 6-4 by Vanderbilt’s Macsen Sisam, which put Lipscomb further behind at 3-0. Caffarena, the No. 2 player for the Bisons, lost both of his sets 6-3 against Harwell, and the Commodores took the 4-0 victory. Matches between Lipscomb’s Chaw and Vanderbilt’s Klinger, and Penny against Ferreira were left unfinished. “Obviously, we came to do our best against Vanderbilt,” said Hernandez. “But we’ve had a bunch of guys sick and some injuries....
