Category: Sports

The Temple Baptist Christian School varsity basketball team opened their season on Thursday.  The Eagles opened up play in the Shenandoah Baptist Academy Tournament in Cleveland, Tennessee.  The Eagles opened the tournament with a doubleheader.  Temple opened up with a 31 to 19 win over Calvary of Kentucky.  In the nightcap, the Eagles shut down the host Shenandoah team by a final score of 36 to 9. 

Against Calvary, the Eagles played nearly mistake-free basketball as they got 14 steals against only 4 turnovers.  Alex Gloden was the leading scorer for Temple as he netted 13 points and pulled down 6 rebounds.  Mich Gloden also had 6 rebounds, 7 steals and scored 10 points.  Sam Floyd added 6 points.

Against Shenandoah, Temple held Shenandoah to 1 field goal in the 1^st half as they rolled to a 17 to 3 lead at intermission.  Temple had 16 steals on the night led by Isaiah Baker and Alex Gloden who each had 5.  Mich Gloden led the Eagles in scoring with 12 points.  Baker added 10 points and Alex Gloden chipped in 6. 

Temple will return to action on Friday as the tournament continues.  The Cleveland tournament concludes on Saturday.  Temple travels to Shelbyville on Tuesday night to take on Victory Baptist Academy.  That JV/varsity doubleheader will get underway at 5 PM.  Temple will host its first home game on December 12^th. 

Coffee County CHS soccer player Jenna Garretson has signed a college scholarship to continue her soccer career.  Garretson inked her letter of intent with Lee University at a ceremony in the CHS library.  Surrounded by friends, teammates and family, the senior midfielder made her college choice official on Wednesday.

Garretson led the Lady Raiders to 2 straight district finals in her final 2 seasons including a regular season district championship this fall.  Jenna was the team leader in goals and points this season as she finished with 15 goals and 3 assists.  Garretson was named to 1^st team All-District team as an attacking midfielder this season after being named the District Defender of the Year in her sophomore and junior seasons.  Jenna is expected to compete for a starting position as an attacking midfielder at Lee. 

Coffee County CHS head coach Lee Xixis believes Garretson will be successful at the college level because of her intensity.  “Jenna understands what it takes to compete at the next level and will work hard and have the intensity to compete(at the college level).”  Xixis praised Garretson for her leadership with her play and “she also led by example.  She will be hard to replace for a lot of reasons” added Xixis. 

Lee is coached by head coach Chris Hennessey and Luidgi Beauzile and Jenna said that was a big reason she chose Lee.  “They have been my travel coaches since my freshman year” said Garretson.  She also loved the campus saying “everything is new” in addition to the tradition and success of the program. 

Lee University is a private Christian university in Cleveland, Tennessee.  Lee is a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division II, competing in the Gulf South Conference.  The Lady Flames have made 3 straight appearances in the conference championship game, and advanced to the NCAA Division 2 Final Four in 2018.

Season tickets for the upcoming season of Coffee County CHS basketball have gone on sale this week.  Tickets are available for purchase between the hours of 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM Monday through Friday at the CHS Main office.  Tickets are $60 each which is a one game discount over purchasing them at the door. 

Season tickets, employee badges, and student Renaissance cards cannot be used for Hall of Champion, Christmas Tournament, or Post-Season games. 

Tickets at the gate will be $6 for adults and $3 for students. Preschool children get in free. 

The Tennessee Titans will begin construction next week on an expansion project at Saint Thomas Sports Park, which will almost double its current footprint in Nashville’s MetroCenter neighborhood.

The plan includes 60,000-square-feet in additions, including a new building situated along one of the practice fields, and major renovation of spaces within the existing 75,000-square-foot building. Improvements to Saint Thomas Sports Park, home to the team’s practice facility and corporate office since its inaugural season as the Titans in 1999, will continue to transform the space into a modern, first-class building aimed at enhancing the production of both its football and business staffs.

Controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk, who assumed her role in 2015, has made a priority of ensuring that the team has the best tools at its disposal to perform on and off the field. In the past five years, the Titans organization has seen its staff grow by 50 percent. This increased headcount and the continuing evolution of the Titans’ overall business led to the decision to develop the building.

“We’ve added so many members to the Titans family over the past several years,” Adams Strunk said. “Evolving our workplace makes perfect sense from both a growth standpoint as well as maximizing our team’s overall effectiveness. This new facility will ultimately create the modern environment that will enable further success.”

Optimizing the workspace of the coaching staff and players is a key goal in the new office building. A revamped auditorium for all-team meetings, modernized meeting spaces for film study and a new draft room are among the items planned. These improvements come following Adams Strunk’s already completed renovations to the facility, which include a new cafeteria, weight room, locker room, training room and TV and radio studios.

Also planned in the new development is a 2,000-square-foot event space that leads out onto a 2,300-square-foot rooftop deck. While this space will be used for day-to-day staff functions, it will also serve as a key entertainment area for sponsors and other visitors to the facility.

On the business side, the construction will allow the Titans to consolidate various departments that had been housed in multiple locations into the same building. Currently, the Titans lease additional space in MetroCenter to accommodate growth and houses its Ticket Sales group at Nissan Stadium. The new space will bring the vast majority of its staff under one roof.

In addition to functional workspace, a two-story, 39,000-square-foot parking garage will add over 100 parking spaces to the facility.

Titans staff toured multiple NFL practice facilities as research for the building development to ensure the team’s ideas matched or exceeded current NFL standards. The project is in collaboration with Smallwood Nickle Architects, who developed the renderings of the proposed space. PBG Builders Inc. has been hired as the contractor.

The Westwood Middle School 6^th Grade basketball teams welcomed Irving College to the Joel Vinson Gym on Tuesday night.  Playing in their first games of the year, the Westwood teams got a sweep over the visiting Tigers.  The Lady Rockets rolled to a 49 to 10 win.  The Rockets gutted out a 28 to 24 victory. 

In the girls’ game, Westwood held the Lady Tigers scoreless in the 2^nd half to break open a 1 point game.  The Lady Rockets were led in scoring by Maddie Meacham who had 21 points, 14 of those coming in the 4^th quarter.  Audri Patton added 13 points while Maggie Brei and Anna Reed each netted 6 points. 

In the boys’ game, Westwood held off a late charge from Irving College to grab the win.  Blake Cummings led the Rockets in scoring with 11 points.  William Rogers scored 6 points and Matt Moore and Neyland Grant each chipped in 4 points. 

The 6^th grade girls’ team will be back in action on Sunday when they host Community at the Joel Vinson Gym. 

The Predators four-game road trip concluded with a 1-2-1 mark after Nashville fell, 5-3, to the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday night at Rogers Arena.

The Predators clawed back into the game on multiple occasions, tying the game at 2-2 in the third period and then again at 4-3 with 5:34 left in regulation, but three power-play goals for the Canucks defined the evening.

“Definitely a frustrating game,” Preds center Ryan Johansen said. “We feel like we did a lot of good things. The first period was OK, but after that, I thought we played a good game. Obviously, they had three power-play goals, and they have good players over there, good young team, lots of skill and you can’t give them that many chances. A couple unfortunate bounces too on the goals, but it was a frustrating one because we felt a little unlucky.”

“It’s tough,” Preds Head Coach Peter Laviolette said. “Guys played hard and kept fighting back in the game and just couldn’t get there.”

Tuesday’s 5-3 loss wasn’t a particularly poor effort – the Predators recorded a season-high 19 shots in the second period – but it also wasn’t a quality enough performance to claim two points. On some nights, average execution is enough for a win, but when a few losses start to pile up in a row it can feel like only a near-perfect game plan is enough to claim a victory.

“It’s a little inconsistent,” Preds forward Filip Forsberg said. “We want to come out and carry the play, and I think we think we’re doing OK in the first period, but they were better – and we’re not OK with that.”

It took until the second period for someone to find the back of the net, and it was Tanner Pearson, who gave the Canucks a 1-0 lead. Nashville evened it up at 13:35 of the period when the new-look line of Calle Jarnkrok, Matt Duchene and Viktor Arvidsson got the puck to the net, and Jarnkrok slapped home a loose puck for a 1-1 draw through 40 minutes.

Both clubs found their offense in the third, and Elias Pettersson scored twice for the Canucks, including what proved to be the game-winner. Mikael Granlund redirected a point shot for Nashville’s second goal, and Forsberg tallied on the power play to record a goal for the fourth-consecutive game, but that was as close as the Preds came.

After four games and 10 days on the road, the Predators are now looking forward to getting back home – a chance to get in a pair of productive practice days before hosting Chicago on Saturday night as they look to snap their losing streak.

“It’s the end of a long road trip for us, lots of traveling, four time zones as well,” Johansen said. “We’ll get back, take a couple of days, and then take our next game and play our brand of hockey and our best hockey, and we’ll go from there.”

Notes:

With a goal on Tuesday night, Calle Jarnkrok now has eight points (5g-3a) in his last eight games versus Vancouver.

Miikka Salomaki and Matt Irwin were scratched for the Preds on Tuesday night.

The Predators will now return to Nashville for a three-game homestand which starts on Saturday night (at 7 p.m. CT) at Bridgestone Arena as the Chicago Blackhawks come to town.

The Coffee County Middle School basketball teams traveled to Shelbyville on Monday night for a pair of games with conference foe Harris.  In a doubleheader heard here on Thunder Radio, the Lady Raiders dropped their first conference game of the year 29 to 22.  The Red Raiders raced past the Eagles by a final score of 50 to 18.

The Lady Raiders jumped out to a 7 to 2 lead in the 1^st quarter before the Eaglettes caught fire.  Coffee County suffered a cold shooting night at the free throw line as they hit only 8 of 20 free throws.  Olivia Vinson and Channah Gannon led the Lady Raiders in scoring as each had 7 points.   Addi Sartain chipped in 4 points for Coffee Middle as their record falls to 5 and 2 overall and 3 and 1 in conference play. 

After Harris took an early 4 to 2 lead, the Red Raiders used a strong defensive effort in the 1^st half to go on a 20 point run to build a 22 to 8 lead at the half.  Harris made a short run to cut the deficit to 8 points before Coffee County went on another 13 point run to put the game out of reach.   The Red Raiders were led in scoring by Ethan Hargrove who finished with 10 points.  Brendan Shepherd finished with 8 points and Jackson Shemwell added 7 points as 9 different Red Raiders scored in the game.  The win improves the Raiders to 4 and 2 overall and 3 and 1 in conference play. 

Coffee Middle will travel to Sparta on Thursday night for a conference matchup with White County.  The girls’ game will begin at 6 PM. 

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

With the 2019 Major League Soccer season in the books, Nashville Soccer Club will get the chance to take another step forward in its 2020 roster build this week with the opening of the two-day MLS trade window.

Starting at noon CT on Monday, November 11, all MLS clubs will have the opportunity to sign and trade players and assets for 55 hours until the trade window closes at 7 p.m. CT on Wednesday, Nov. 13. Once the window closes, the league will enter into a blackout period during which clubs will not be able to make any transactions until the conclusion of the 2019 MLS Expansion Draft on Tuesday, Nov. 19.

This window could represent another chance for Nashville SC to add more talent to its inaugural MLS roster. Going into this window, Nashville SC has seven players signed to its 2020 roster: Daniel Ríos, Cameron Lancaster, Derrick Jones, David Accam, Aníbal Godoy, Hany Mukhtar and Randall Leal.

After the window closes, Nashville SC will turn its attention to the MLS Expansion Draft as the club and Inter Miami CF will be able to select up to five players from other MLS clubs. Nashville SC will be holding an Expansion Draft party at Ole Red® Nashville on Broadway next Tuesday starting at 4 p.m. CT.

The Westwood basketball teams hosted their first home games of the year on Friday as they welcomed Morrison to the Joel Vinson Gym.  Playing before a capacity crowd in a doubleheader heard here on Thunder Radio, both Rocket teams used great defensive performances to roll to impressive wins.  The Lady Rockets won by a final score of 40 to 18 while the Rockets rolled to a 41 to 15 victory.

The Lady Rockets ran out to a 10 to 0 win in the first 5 minutes before the Lady Eagles got on the scoreboard.  The Lady Rockets scored the first 7 points of the 2^nd quarter and Morrison could never get the deficit below double digits the rest of the night.  Nine different Lady Rocket players scored on the night led by Bryleigh Gray who had 12 points.  Princess Penaloza added 9 points while Leonor Moreno finished with 6 points.  The win improves Westwood to 7 and 0 on the season and 4 and 0 in conference play. 

After a sloppy 1^st quarter for both boys’ teams, Westwood got their offense on track in the 2^nd quarter to take a 15 point lead into the halftime intermission.  After an even 3^rd quarter, the Rockets held the Eagles to 2 points in the 4^th quarter to roll to the win.  Westwood was led in scoring by Jayden Carter who had 19 points.  Skyler Stinson added 10 points and Dylen Trail came off the bench to score 5.   The win improves the Rockets to 6 and 1 on the season and 4 and 0 in conference play. 

Westwood will return to action on Tuesday as the 6th grade teams host Irving College.  The girls’ game will tip off at 6 PM at the Joel Vinson Gym. 

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