The middle school swim teams of Coffee County and Westwood traveled to Sewanee on Saturday to compete in the Snowflake Invitational.  Competing in their biggest meet of the year, the Raider and Rocket swimmers faced their toughest competition of the year thus far.  At the end of the day, the Westwood team came home with a 7^th place finish in the team standings.  Coffee County finished in 8^th place. 

Westwood’s Abby Gilday had the highest individual finish for the Lady Rockets as she finished in 2^nd place in the 50 butterfly with a time of 35.19.  For the Rockets, Jack Stowe also grabbed a 2^nd place finish in the 200 IM as he posted a time of 2:56.23.  Stowe also grabbed 3^rd place in the 100 freestyle with a time of 1:12.23.

Coffee County’s Brayden Kesling had the highest individual finish Red Raiders as he finished in 1^st place in the 100 backstroke.  Emily Snider had the highest individual finish with an 8^th place finish in the 100 freestyle with a time of 1:16.02

Becky Behrendorf, swim coach for the middle and high school teams will be a guest on Saturday’s Coffee Coaches Show.  The Coffee Coaches Show is broadcast each Saturday morning at 10 AM from the showroom of AL White Ford/Lincoln.  The Coffee Coaches Show is broadcast exclusively on Thunder Radio. 

The Temple Baptist Christian School basketball teams traveled to Shelbyville on Tuesday night to do battle with the rival Patriots of Victory Baptist Academy.  The junior varsity team(middle school age) opened the season with a 33 to 6 loss. The varsity Eagles fell by a final score of 47 to 14. 

In the JV game, the Eagles got off to an ice cold start as they fell behind 10 to 0 at the half.  Sam Floyd hit a field goal and a free throw in the 3^rd quarter while Jackson Wright added a 3 point basket.

In the varsity game, the Eagles got off to another ice cold start as they were held scoreless in the 1^st quarter.  Victory rushed out to a 27 to 0 lead and built the lead to 28 points by halftime.  Alex Gloden led Temple in scoring with 7 points.  Mich Gloden added 5 points as Temple fell to 3 and 3 on the season. 

The Eagle teams will return to the road on Friday night as they travel to Calhoun, Georgia.  Both the varsity and junior varsity will be in action as they tangle with Philadelphia Christian.  The JV game will tip off at 5 PM EST. 

Nick Bonino scored Nashville’s lone goal as the Predators fell to the Winnipeg Jets, 2-1, on Tuesday night at Bridgestone Arena. The result pushes Nashville’s winless streak to five games, as they drop their first meeting of the season with their division rival.

Preds goaltender Juuse Saros stopped 23 shots on the night and the home team managed 39 shots at the Winnipeg net, but as was the case in Saturday’s loss, Nashville couldn’t get much to fall in their favor.

Under normal circumstances, a 2-1 loss wouldn’t necessarily elicit frustrated responses from the participants. However, considering their current situation, Tuesday’s result left another disappointing taste with the Predators.

“We’re in a results-oriented business,” Preds Head Coach Peter Laviolette said. “It’s about winning hockey games, and so you try to get better and move in the right direction. I think the guys for the most part did that. I thought we played the game the right way. It’s difficult because you come out on the wrong side of it.”

“I guess it’s a better overall effort, I thought we played hard the whole time, but we got no points,” Bonino said. “We need two points, and it doesn’t matter how hard we work or how good we played. They got two points and we didn’t. Especially these couple weeks where we’re playing division games, you just can’t have it.”

It only took the Jets 18 seconds to take a 1-0 lead, which came courtesy of Patrik Laine, and Nikolaj Ehlers gave the visitors a 2-0 advantage early in the second period. But before the stanza was out, Rocco Grimaldi made a slick feed in front to Bonino, and the Nashville centerman buried his ninth of the season, good enough to tie for the team lead in goals and get his club on the board.

The Predators put 16 more shots on Connor Hellebuyck in the final frame, but Bonino’s goal was as close as they came to finding at least a point in the standings.

“We talked about it this morning – very rarely do you do anything perfect in sports,” Laviolette said. “We were talking about the details of the game. You can’t be perfect with your game, but if you can be better on your details, if you can eliminate some of the problems that are going on the ice might give you a better opportunity to move forward and win hockey games, and I thought we did that. I didn’t think it was a reckless game… We had opportunities and looks, we couldn’t get it done again.”

There was plenty of dissatisfaction to go around in the immediate aftermath on Tuesday, but sulking won’t do the Predators any good. Instead, there’s nothing they can do but look forward to Thursday’s meeting with the Canucks, another chance to end the skid and get back to the team the Preds know they can be.

“When you’re in a bad stretch, you lose two, three, four or whatever in a row, you’ve just got to band together, stick together and come out of it,” Grimaldi said. “It’s actually good we’re going through this. It’s good that we’re going through this in November. Hopefully this is something that we can learn from and it can bond us together. It can grow us because there’s still a lot of season left, 55, 60 games or whatever. So, hopefully this is something that will bond us and bring us closer together as the year goes on.”

Notes:

Forward Kyle Turris, as well as defensemen Matt Irwin and Yannick Weber were scratched for the Preds against the Jets.

Forward Mathieu Olivier made his NHL debut on Tuesday night with the Predators and finished with one shot and three hits in 8:03 of ice time.

Defenseman Steven Santini made his Predators on Tuesday evening and recorded one shot and one hit in 9:03 of ice time.

Nashville’s three-game homestand concludes on Thursday night when the Vancouver Canucks come to town. The Predators then start a home-and-home set with the Blues in St. Louis on Saturday, before returning to Bridgestone Arena on Monday.

The Coffee County Middle School basketball teams returned home on Monday for a crucial conference doubleheader with West Tullahoma.  In a pair of games you heard here on Thunder Radio, the Lady Raiders routed the Lady Bobcats 48 to 12.  The Red Raiders battled hard before falling 37 to 27.

In the girls’ game, the Lady Raiders held West scoreless in the first half as they built a 35 to 0 lead at intermission.  Coffee County built the lead to 43 to 0 before West scored with 1:45 left in the 3rd quarter.  The Lady Raiders were led in scoring by Olivia Vinson who had 24 points, including 22 in the first half.  Bella Lawson added 6 points as the Lady Raiders improved to 6 and 3 overall and 4 and 2 in conference play. 

In the boys’ game, West closed out the 1^st half on a 10 to 2 run to grab an 18 to 12 halftime lead.  In the 2^nd half, the Red Raiders cut the deficit to 2 points in the 3^rd period before West pulled away in the 4^th quarter for the win.  Coffee County was led in scoring by Ethan Hargrove who had 11 points.  Jackson Shemwell added 10 points and Cooper Reed finished with 4. 

Coffee Middle will travel to McMinnville on Thursday for a conference doubleheader against Warren County.  The girls’ game will tip off at 6 PM.

Download the broadcast at: https://www.thunder1320.com/downloads/

The Westwood Middle School basketball teams traveled to McMinnville on Monday night for a conference doubleheader with Boyd Christian School.  Both Rocket teams kept their winning streaks alive as each team got impressive wins.  The Lady Rockets won 47 to 2 while the Rockets grabbed a 44 to 11 victory. 

In the girls’ game, the Lady Rockets held the Lady Broncos scoreless in the 1^st half as they built a 37 to 0 lead.  Boyd was held to a pair of free throws in the second half.  Eleven different Lady Rockets scored in the game led by Remi Benjamin who had 8 points.  Leonor Moreno, Princess Penaloza and Keena Seivers all finished with 6 points while Audi Patton added 5 points.  Westwood is now 8 and 0 on the year and 5 and 0 in conference play. 

After a tight 1^st quarter in the boys’ game, the Rockets outscored the Bronco 15 to 1 in the 2^nd quarter to take a 26 to 8 lead into the half.  Westwood emptied their bench in the 4^th quarter as they held Boyd scoreless in the final 6 minutes.  Jayden Carter led the Rockets in scoring with 24 points.  Skyler Stinson added 6 points and Jaiden Warren chipped in 4 as the Rockets improved to 7 to 1 and 6 and 0 in conference play. 

Westwood will be off until after the Thanksgiving holiday.  They return to the Joel Vinson Gym on Monday, December 2^nd when they host Centertown.  Thunder Radio will be on hand to bring you that broadcast as part of the 1^st National Bank Hometown Sports Series.  Opening tip is set for 6 PM.