Christopher James

Here’s an interesting story to get you through the holiday doldrums. Remember back when the Maryville College volleyball and women’s soccer teams were playing in the NCAA tournament over in Texas? Scots volleyball coach and athletic director Kandis Schram had some surprise guests for her team’s first-ever appearance in the NCAA second round against Southwestern in Georgetown.

“We’re standing there and I mean their crowd was huge, not hostile, but it’s loud and all of a sudden when they’re calling our team in the announcement I hear this roar,” Schram said. “I look up and our women’s soccer team flew into San Antonio, got two vans, drove over to watch us play. It was incredible.
“It was about an hour and 40, probably 45 minutes, but the fact that they came a day early, gave up practice time to come and support us was an amazing experience. I was so proud at that point as an athletic director. They came in just jogging, ‘woah!’. It was our 30 kids or whatever and coaches compared to, across the net, a buttload of students. They were loud. They were boisterous. They sat behind our bench and cheered for us the whole time. It was neat.”
Despite the cheering section, the Scots dropped the match and two days later the women’s soccer team was sent home as well, losing to Trinty. It was still a fun trip for soccer coach Pepe Fernandez.
“We flew into San Antonio then jumped into vans and rode over to watch the volleyball game,” Fernandez said. “The girls started talking about it and I said, ‘Guys, what’s the chance we’re going to see one of our other teams in an NCAA tournament where we’re this close?’ We had a great time. (They volleyball team) looked like they were pretty excited to have some fans there.”

Tara Heyboer, who tore the ACL in her right knee Dec 2, will be able to return for a fifth year if she wishes, MC women’s basketball coach Todd Wright told me. The sophomore, who was averaging seven points in six games off the bench, played in less than a third of the Scots scheduled contests this year, making her eligible for a hardship waiver. The cutoff would’ve been nine games.

MC Sports Information

Heyboer

“If Tara is here for a fifth year and academically is having to stay a little bit extra at Maryville College to finish up her academics, there is a possibility, yes, that she would be able to get that year back,” Wright said.

The Associated Press is reporting today that research from the College Sports Project shows that, among 88 of Division III’s most selective schools, male athletes do poorer than the average in their first year. Maryville College was not part of this study, although Great South member Huntingdon College is listed as a participant on the study’s website.
Scots spokesman Eric Etchison said MC does not break down athletes’ grade point averages by gender, but that last year “student-athletes were significantly higher than non-student-athletes in GPA.”

The NCAA’s annual convention is schedule for Jan. 13-16 at the Marriott Marquis and Hyatt Regency hotels in Atlanta. The association could approve a “pilot academic-reporting program” for Division III at those meetings, according to the AP report.

Maryville College forward Tara Heyboer, a member of the Great South Athletic Conference’s 2009 All-Freshman team, is done for the season after tearing her right ACL in a 71-68 loss to Carson-Newman on Dec. 2.
“I just jumped up and went to pass and it popped,” Heyboer said Thursday. “I had a pretty good clue (it was torn).”

The sophomore from Seymour exploded onto the court last year, averaging more than eight points and five rebounds per game as a supersub off the bench. Heyboer had scored 42 points in six games this season before being sidelined. She will have surgery Dec. 23.
“I was just really upset and kind of felt bad for my team cause i couldnt help them anymore,” Heyboer said.

After growing up as a University of Maine fan, It’s sad to hear that fellow Colonial Athletic Association member Northeastern is dropping football. Maryville College assistant Luke Ewalt, who spent 2008 (a season that included a near-upset of Syracuse at the Carrier Dome) coaching the Huskies receivers, said he found out about the Boston school’s decision Sunday. He has it right when he says it’s a “shame. It’s a place with a lot of potential and history.”
It’s kind of amazing to think how insanely expensive football can be compared to almost any other sport, particularly at the Division I level. I once interviewed for a job at Xavier, which doesn’t have football. The Musketeers’ sports information staff, from director to intern, is exactly four. Compare that to the legions Tennessee deploys in the press box every Saturday. Obviously, that’s just a small part of an overall athletic budget, so multiply those extra employees through each support department, and it adds up. That’s even more true today when smaller, private schools are being forced to cut entire sports to stay afloat.

I got a chance to stop by Maryville College men’s basketball practice today and coach Randy Lambert told me he’s hoping his team can sneak into the D3hoops.com Top 25 with a pair of wins this weekend. Lambert said he believes his team belongs in the rankings despite not getting a single vote in the preseason poll.

“There are upsets all the time,” Lambert said. “Preseason ranking don’t mean much, especially at our level. There’s almost no regional crossover.”
The Scots (2-0) picked up one of those early upsets Wednesday, knocking off No. 21 Centre College (0-1), 72-70, in Danville, Ky. Six ranked teams have already dropped games in the first week, including No. 5 Richard Stockton.
A return to the rankings would be MC’s first since March 2, 2008, when it checked in at 19th with a 24-2 record.
Lambert and the Scots will host the first annual James C. Campbell Memorial Tournament this weekend, featuring LaGrange, Wabash and Webster. Maryville will play Webster on Saturday at 7 p.m. inside Boydson Baird Gymnasium before tackling Wabash at 4 p.m. Sunday.

Just who is Paige Sevier, anyway?
The junior transfer made a statement yesterday, hitting four quick 3-pointers in two minutes in her first game for Maryville College, a 66-54 win over Methodist University. Sevier is one of 11 newcomers on this year’s roster, several who have come on board from coach Todd Wright’s former stops at Oliver Springs High School and Roane State Community College.

“I played for (Wright) my freshman year and then he came here my sophomore year and then I came back to him,” Sevier said. “It was a big decision ‘cause I’m two and a half hours away from home now. It’s different from Roane State. It’s the community college and then coming here. But I like it.”
The sharpshooter knocked down 3’s at a 35 percent clip over two years with the Raiderettes, shooting nearly 40 percent from beyond the arc in 27 games last year. Sevier led Jackson County to the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association Class A semifinals as a senior in 2007, helping the team to 22 wins before falling to eventual state champion Gleason, 50-22.
Wright saw something in the 5-foot-8 guard then and he has her back on his roster now.
“She can play,” Wright said after Sunday’s win. “Hopefully people saw it today. She makes shots and she rebounds and plays pretty good defense. I recruited her at Roane State when I was there and she had a great career there for two years and has come over here and started adjusting and starting to fit in real well. I think she’s going to be a main weapon for us. There’s no question about it.”

Paige Sevier at Roane State

The MC men make it a clean sweep of Methodist. The Scots cruised through the second half, never being threatened. While the 3-point shooting remained a struggle, MC maintained control with some tough defense and fast breaking. The four triples are the fewest the Scots have had in a game in at least a year.

Hernandez finished with a double-double (25 points, 10 rebounds) and he had plenty of help as four of five starters posted double figures. Watson had 17, mostly in transition.

Maryville College isn’t bombing away, but the Scots are still just as explosive. A 21-point lead over Methodist is thanks in large part to 6-foot-6 center Greg Hernandez, who has 18 points on 8-of-10 shooting.

The 3-point trio of Wes Lambert, Jordan Damron and Eryk Watson have just 11 points combined. It’s OK because Hernandez has taken over. When the Monarchs pulled within 10 late in the half, Hernandez started flashing in the paint and running the break, scoring nine points in a 11-0 Scots run to end the period.

A little nervous in the first half, junior transfer Paige Sevier showed what she could do in the second, going for 16 points and four 3-pointers.

Methodist tried to collapse on Holder and Sevier cranked up the old inside-outside game. MC weather another run from the Lady Monarchs that tied the game, pulling away by getting the ball back inside to Harmon.

MC shot near 60 percent in the second half but finished with 23 turnovers. Wright admits that’s probably a side effect of his running style, but something the Scots need to clean up.