Bryan College's Brandon Cole, Tennessee Wesleyan's Armeka Booker earn fourth AAC honors

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Arkansas-SEMO Live Blog

Bryan College's Brandon Cole and Tennessee Wesleyan's Armeka Booker each was named Monday for the fourth time this season as Appalachian Athletic Conference basketball player of the week. Booker, a 6-foot-1 junior from Oak Ridge, was the women's honoree as the Lady Bulldogs remained tied for first place in the league in large part because of her 40 points, 19 rebounds and 14-of-25 field-goal shooting in two wins, including 26 points and 15 rebounds with two blocked shots in Saturday's come-from-behind 64-63 win at Milligan. Cole, a 6-2 sophomore from Crossville, had 66 points and 13 rebounds in two victories and leads the AAC in scoring, rebounding and double-doubles. He is second in NAIA Division II in rebounds (249), rebounds per game (11.3) and double-doubles (13) and sixth in points per game (24.9). Bryan's teams visit Point while Wesleyan hosts Truett-McConnell in AAC doubleheaders Wednesday evening.

• Tennessee Temple sophomore forward Angel Foster was the United States Collegiate Athletic Association's women's Division I basketball player of the week for games in which the Lady Crusaders went 3-0 and she averaged 12.7 points, 11.3 rebounds and 2.3 steals in only 18.7 minutes per game. She had 18 rebounds with 16 points and five steals against Florida College, another USCAA member.

• Sophomore guard Hunter Ivester from Trion had 14 points, nine rebounds and two steals as the Georgia Northwestern men's basketball team won 70-52 over the Covenant College junior varsity Monday at the Rossville Athletic Complex. Tavish Reynolds added 11 points with three 3-point baskets for the Bobcats (6-10), who play Friday night at Southern Crescent in Thomaston, Ga. The Covenant jayvees got 15 points from James Leithart and 14 from Luke Gleason.

Softball

• Georgia Southern won the coaches' voting as the preseason favorite to win the Southern Conference softball championship this year, and longtime league power UTC was picked fourth out of eight teams with only third baseman Sarah Beth Roberts and outfielder Sam Taylor on the first team and shortstop Alyssa Taylor and outfielder Stephanie Rieck on the second team as preseason all-conference Mocs. The voting was announced Tuesday. The Moc RBI Club is hosting an open house for the public to meet the UTC team Thursday night starting at 7 at the indoor practice facility at Warner Park. The players and coaches will be introduced and then go through a brief workout preceding an autograph session. Schedule cards and posters will be given out. There is no charge to attend.

Rugby

• The Nooga Red rugby team has won the Mid South Division II championship two of the past three years and is in first place again, having defeated the Knoxville Possums 48-6 this past Saturday, and the Nooga Black second-year Division III team is undefeated after opening the doubleheader with a 66-7 thrashing of Gadsden. Fly half Andrew Gotliffe, flanker Abner Casavant and inside centre Korey Chambers sparked the Nooga Black victory. For Nooga Red, Ricky Streeter, Nick Bateman and Steven Jones scored tries for a 19-3 first-half lead, and Streeter wound up with three tries in all. Luke Collins and Pat Flynn also scored, and Wiley Davis scored 13 points on conversions.

Soccer

• The Red Bank-based Premier Soccer Academy under-17 boys' team won the gold division championship of the Southeast College Showcase this past weekend in Knoxville. PSA Lanus won 4-0 over CWSC United Red and 4-1 over Atletico Flames 97 and played to a 1-all tie with Metro FC Corragio, which was 0-1-2 in the tournament. PSA's point total of 23 dwarfed the 11 for runner-up CWSC United. The Lanus players are Adam Ahlyege, Sandi Beganovic, Christian Bolano, Emerson Brock, Carlos Byron, Noah Cingili, Andrew Clark, Markos Howard, Jonathan Mackay, Christopher Payne, Ethan Pettit, Jonathan Ricketts, Josias Roach, Matthew Sheets and Grant Sutherland. Pedro Kozak is the coach, assisted by Charlie Mackay.