Volume 2 Number 8 The Home of Hometown Heroes! February 27, 2019

Williamsonsports weekly

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

BA Poised to Win Fifth StraightPage 2

Ravenwood Knocks Off Brentwood Page 4

BA Girls Advance to SemifinalsPage 5

Great Year EndsPage Comes Up Short in Semis After Great Regular Season

Pressure DefensePage’s Delaney Noe maneuvers her way through traffic during Friday’s region tourney game against Cane Ridge.

Photo by Craig Flagg

By Craig FlaggNSP Contributor

The first three-plus months of the high school basketball season went so well for the Page Lady Patriots, they had to be wondering if their success was simply too good to be true.

While there is no denying that the 26-3 mark they posted during the regular season is delightfully gau-dy — never mind their 15-1 mark in District 11-AAA play — Monday night’s overtime loss to Dickson County in the Region 6-AAA semi-finals serves as a bitter clump of re-ality in a campaign that otherwise has been smoother than grandma’s gravy.

In many ways, Page’s entry into the Class AAA postseason party was way ahead of schedule. After all, this is just its second season of competition among the state’s larg-est schools.

Monday night’s 63-62 loss also shows the uncertainty of the al-most-anything-goes nature of life in District 11-AAA. Just days ear-lier, as the region tourney opened, all four 11-AAA teams won against their District 12-AAA counterparts to set up a rowdy showdown of familiar rivals to battle it out for a spot in the substate.

That anything-goes action cer-tainly played out Monday night as

Page and Dickson County went toe to toe for four quarters and then some.

Page managed to jump ahead 51-47 with just over 1:30 left to play in regulation. Dickson County then scored seven points and held Page scoreless to take a 54-51 lead with about 30 seconds left to play.

Trailing by three and looking at one last chance, the Lady Patriots went to the sideline to come up with a plan. Most assuredly, the plan would involve senior Faith Wilken, Page’s all-time leading scorer.

“I was kind of fumbling over in my mind what I wanted to do and she said let’s run stack outside,” Page head coach Ron Brock said while describing the final seconds of regulation. “I said, ‘Well, I guess we can run that against a man or a zone, so let’s go do it.’ It’s designed for her to catch real quick and shoot, and she did.”

The Page girls got the ball in-bounds and got it to Wilken, who sank a game-tying three-pointer as time expired.

“Boy, that girl is a pretty good ballplayer,” Brock said of Wilken, who finished the game with a team-high 22 points.

Even though Page would again build a lead in the overtime peri-od, Dickson County just seemed to have an answer every time it needed one.

Continued on Page 5

2 Nashville Sports Publications February 27, 2019

BA Poised to Win Fifth Championship in a RowBy Chip CirilloNSP Contributor

The first hashtag surfaced on Twitter late in the summer: #drive-forfive.

That’s what Brentwood Academy has been shooting for all season: a fifth consecutive state title.

The Eagles (24-6) are two wins away from becoming the first boys basketball team in state history to win five in a row.

“Oh, it would be amazing to be a part of history forever,” BA guard Marcus Fitzgerald said. “That’s what we’ve been striving to do since preseason.”

BA has won four straight twice. Brandan Wright led the Eagles to their first four state titles from 2003-06 and Darius Garland was the maestro from 2015-18.

Corn Elder guided Ensworth to a fourpeat from 2011-14.

BA continues its quest in a Divi-sion II-AA semifinal against Baylor (22-5) at Lipscomb’s Allen Arena on Thursday. The teams split two games during the regular season.

The Eagles could tie Memphis East for the most state titles with nine.

“This is a totally different team,” Eagles coach Hubie Smith said. “This would kind of be our first with this team.”

Devyn Curtis, a 6-foot-2 post, is the only returning starter from last year’s 25-5 team.

BA lost a once-in-a-lifetime-play-er to graduation in Garland, an in-jured Vanderbilt freshman who’s projected to be an NBA Lottery pick in June.

But Randy Brady transferred in from Baylor and blossomed into a Mr. Basketball finalist. The 6-foot-4

sophomore guard is a five-star pros-pect with four Southeastern Con-ference offers, including Tennessee and Vanderbilt.

“He’s just been a joy to coach,” Smith said, “I love how he com-petes and how coachable he is.”

Brady averages 19.6 points and 6.7 rebounds per game for the Ea-gles, who have won 13 straight.

He leads a talented back court that includes fellow guards Marcus Fitz-gerald (18 ppg) and B.J. Davis (10 ppg).

“We agree to disagree, which I think makes our team even better because we all have ideas and then we share them with each other, and it works perfectly,” Brady said. “If we want to say something, we say it and go with the best idea.”

BA won 10 of its first 11 games before stalling in a mid-season slump.

The Eagles lost five of six in late December and early January before starting their current win streak with a victory over Montgomery

Bell Academy on Jan. 12.“We made a change in our offense

and we just got better defensively,” Smith said. “We did less screening and more cutting. We tried to play a little faster and get a little more tempo to our half-court offense.”

BA’s trademark is its tenacious man-to-man defense.

“A lot of times in games, espe-cially lately, we just have spurts where we don’t let anybody score and that really helps us, especially when we don’t shoot it well,” Davis said. “When we guard and get turn-overs and steals, we really get in transition and that makes the game so much better.”

Curtis returned from a shoulder injury in a Jan. 25 win over McCal-lie after missing the first 21 games.

“On defense we’re, like, 10 times better since Devyn came back,” Fitzgerald said. “He causes so many turnovers. He creates so many ex-tra possessions for us. He gets his hands on almost every ball and on ball screens he can attack the ball-

handler and poke it out, and then we’re off to transition.”

Curtis is arguably the Eagles’ best defender and one of the best re-bounders.

“He’s Dennis Rodman with a great attitude,” Smith said. “Even though he doesn’t score a lot, he’s one of our most valuable players.”

Smith, who will be inducted into the TSSAA Hall of Fame on April 13, starts each season with a simple premise.

“His goal each year is to help that particular team be the best team that they can possibly be,” said Battle Ground Academy first-year coach Jared Street, a BA assistant the previous three seasons. “Now, if that just so results in a sate cham-pionship then that results in a state championship. Very rarely did we ever talk about winning a state ti-tle.”

Instead, they focused on reach-ing the team’s maximum potential. Championships became a by-prod-uct.

Defense is absolutely the corner-stone of Smith’s coaching philoso-phy.

“He wants to be the best defen-sive team in the state every year and he wants to make sure the defen-sive end is where you win games,” Street said.

One day a college football coach who was recruiting a BA basket-ball player who played both sports asked him if he had just watched a defensive practice.

“Our player goes, ‘No, that’s a pretty normal practice for us. We pretty much have a defensive focus every practice,’ ” Street said. “(Hu-bie) wants to be able to take away what the other team does best and if he can do that, he feels like he’s given himself a chance to win.”

Smith earned his 700th career win (boys and girls) in BA’s second vic-tory over MBA on Feb. 1.

The veteran coach could add an historical win to his resume if his team completes the drive for five Saturday.

“We’ve now positioned ourselves enough where we at least have a chance,” Smith said. “I mean, a month ago we were nowhere close to being a state championship team. We’re learning a lot as a team and growing and understanding con-cepts a lot better than we were ear-lier in the year.”

Five-star recruit Randy Brady transferred from Baylor and has helped BA replace four-time champion Darius Garland.

Photo by Carl Edmondson

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February 27, 2019 Nashville Sports Publications 3

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Editorial Staff

Stetson Marlin Contributing Writer

Parker Bell Contributing Writer

Craig Flagg Contributing Writer

Craig Ladd Contributing Writer

Chip CirilloContributing Writer

George WongContributing Writer

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WNSL Basketball Season Wraps UpThis past Saturday wrapped up

the 23rd West Nashville Sports Leagues basketball season.

WNSL would like to say a big thank you to the 20-plus gyms in Davidson and Williamson counties that hosted us over the past two months, and a HUGE thank you to the over 290 teams that played with us this season.

A long standing tradition at WNSL has been the “Love of the Game” trophy.

Instead of giving trophies to the teams who won the most games, WNSL awards its highest honor to the teams who exhibit sportsman-ship, whose players, coaches and parents come to the gym each week with a great attitude, win or lose!

According to Scott Tygard, the WNSL Director, “The Love of the Game Trophy is a tough one to give out for most of the WNSL basket-

ball teams exhibit great sportsman-ship and play the game of basketball the right way. Teams that “won” the Love of the Game Trophy exhibit-ed something really special during the season and is based on the real meaning of playing the game just for the love of playing. Wins and loses had no bearing on who re-ceived this special trophy!”

This season, 30 teams were awarded the Love of the Game tro-phy. Congratulations to all of the teams who took home this award!

WNSL will wrap up the Winter Basketball season with the 19th An-nual March Madness Tournament. This tournament is open to all teams across the Southeast and is held the first weekend of March each year.

For more details about WNSL basketball, please visit us online at wnsl.org

The Dragons with their Love of the Game award.. Front row, left to right: Genevieve Pace, Surina Birdee, Bielle Brandes, Harper Hughey, Harper Hillenmeyer Second row, left to right: Laini Zoubek, Maliya Patel, Audrey Khazanov, Syra Tahiliani. Last row, left to right: Coach Vikesh Tahiliani and Coach Derek Hughey. Photos courtesy of WNSL

The red storm with their Love of the Game Trophy. Top Row Left to RightJacob Thompson, David Houston, Roman Dixon, Kevin Spivey, Drew Dun-bar, Bottom Row Left to Right, Tyler Ouellette, Jack Snide, Andrew OuelletteCoach Is Michael Massmann. Photo courtesy of WNSL

4 Nashville Sports Publications February 27, 2019

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Ravenwood Uses Defense to Knock Of Brentwood

Ravenwood’s Jaz Harmon (20) draws a lot of attention when she get the ball, but still managed to score 22 points.

Photo by Carl Edmondson

By Chip CirilloNSP Contributor

Never underestimate the impor-tance of good defense.

Ravenwood doesn’t and that’s why it’s still alive in the postseason.

Jaz Harmon scored 22 points and grabbed nine rebounds, leading the visiting Lady Raptors to a 43-41 win over archrival Brentwood in a Region 6-AAA semifinal Monday night.

Harmon, a junior guard who has committed to Alabama-Birming-ham, passed the 1,000-career points milestone early in the first quarter.

“Defensively, we did a really good job and that’s what kept us in the game,” Ravenwood coach Mariska Harris said. “I think the score was 13-12 at halftime – super low-scor-ing game. A lot of times that’s in our favor.”

Ravenwood (17-11) will face Dickson County (27-5) in the cham-pionship at Brentwood Wednesday night.

The Lady Raptors shut out twins Emily and Delaney Trushel, two of Brentwood’s top players, as they

went a combined 0 for 9 from the field.

Trailing 42-41, Brentwood (19-

10) had a chance to take the last shot, but it turned the ball over at half-court with 1.8 second left.

Harmon’s foul shot with .7 sec-ond left finished the scoring.

Ravenwood swept three games from Brentwood in the Battle of the Woods.

“Our post players,” Harris said of Ravenwood’s matchup advantage in the rivalry. “In the last few games (Brentwood) has been starting five guards, so I told our posts we’ve got to be a threat on the offensive boards.”

Ravenwood posts Savannah Dews (6-2), Mary Prestegaard and Taya Lee all played strong inside as the Lady Raptors outscored the Lady Bruins 22-12 in the paint.

“We shut down their key players, the Trushel twins, and knew we had to make the other players beat us, and that’s what we did,” Rav-enwood point guard Lexi Erickson said.

Chloe Wampler led Brentwood with 16 points, including five 3-pointers, and Amelia Osgood added 15. Wampler buried three clutch 3-pointers during the last 2:11 to keep Brentwood close.

“(Chloe) stepped up big for us and we actually worked in prac-tice (during) the week if they were going to leave her open for her to take shots,” Brentwood coach Myl-

es Thrash said. “Overall, I thought we had a great season. I don’t think we did a good job on containing Jaz on some of those layups. She’s an amazing player. She willed her team to the win.”

Ravenwood 49, Hillsboro 41Harmon scored 29 points, includ-

ing 15 of her team’s 16 points in the fourth quarter, in Saturday’s quar-terfinal win.

“That’s Jaz. That’s what’s she’s capable of every game,” Harris said. “I tell her every day she’s got to go out there having the mindset of be-ing the best player out on the floor when she steps out there and when she takes over the game it does a lot more for our team.”

Erickson added 13 points for the Lady Raptors, who took a 24-11 halftime lead.

“Lexi hit some big 3’s for us to-night that helped with momentum and shots that we had to have at crunch time,” Harris said.

Guard Anaya Marin led the Lady Burros with 13 points and freshman Latisha Parris added 10.

“(Harmon) has a quick first step,” Hillsboro coach Cherish Stringfield said. “She’s an extremely hard driv-er and when you’ve got somebody coming at you like that every pos-session for 32 minutes it’s tough to guard. … She’s a really fantastic player.”

Dickson County 63, Page 62K.K. Curtis’ layup with six sec-

onds left in overtime gave Dickson a win in a 6-AAA semifinal Mon-day night.

“Not the play we called,” Dick-son County coach Erin Webb said. “Made me look like a genius these two (Curtis and Caty Roberts) did.”

Page (29-5) had Dickson’s final play well covered, so Curtis looked for an opening and Roberts found her with a pass underneath the bas-ket.

Page’s Faith Wilken sent the game into OT tied at 54 when the Trevec-ca signee swished a 3-pointer at the regulation buzzer.

She suggested the stack outside play on the tying 3-pointer.

“We’ve had a great season, espe-cially moving up to triple-A from double-A,” Page coach Ron Brock said.

Wilken led Page with 22 points, 13 rebounds and five steals in her final high school game.

February 27, 2019 Nashville Sports Publications 5

BA Boys and Girls Move On in Division II-AA

Continued from Page 1

“We got down very quickly right there,” a hoarse Dickson county coach Erin Webb said afterward. “Our kids just never quit. They just never do. They won’t let each other quit.”

Dickson County’s KK Curtis put the Lady Cougars up 63-62 with nine seconds left in overtime. Page got another chance and quickly moved the ball around before Wilk-en put up another shot from the pe-rimeter, this time hoping to win it.

It fell short, however, and time ran out.

“My stomach was tore up before the game,” Webb said, referring to the drama that built up leading to this showdown. “I told Coach Brock, I said, ‘Man, I feel like I’m going to throw up.’

“He had good words of wisdom for m,” she continued. “He said we’ve prepared as much as we can, we played each other, we’ve seen each other, we’ve watched film on each other, we’ve studied each other. He was right. We have done everything we could up until this point. And so, after that, it was just time to relax and enjoy every sec-ond.”

While nobody was seen relaxing at any point during the game, both teams will be able to look back on this one and know they left nothing in the tank.

“A lot of really good teams are go-ing home tonight,” Webb said. “I’m really glad we’re not one of them.

With their wins on Monday, Dick-son County and Ravenwood are now guaranteed a spot in the sub-state round, just one win away from

reaching the state tourney. They play each other Wednesday in the region tourney title game with the opportunity to host a substate game on the line.

Falling to Dickson County, a team they faced twice during the regular season, coming away with a split, has to be tough for Page. But know-ing that Ravenwood, a team they beat three times by an average of 28 points, will be playing in the sub-state round will most certainly keep the Lady Patriots tossing and turn-ing for weeks, if not longer.

Brock pointed out that last year’s Lady Patriot team fell just three points shy of advancing out of dis-trict tourney action. In 2018, Page was barely ousted by Brentwood, which made it all the way to sub-state.

Page opened region tourney play

on Friday against Cane Ridge. While that game remained close

through much of the first quarter, the Lady Patriots had built a 17-9 cushion heading into second quar-ter. Page then went on a stunning 21-0 run in the second quarter to build a 38-9 lead before a dazed Cane Ridge squad managed to six points in the final 1:10 to close the first half at 38-16.

Page continued to pour it on in the second half, outscoring Cane Ridge 18-7 in the third quarter and 14-3 in the fourth quarter.

In that region tourney opener, four Lady Patriots, led by Lili Wilk-en, reached double figures in scor-ing in the big win. Wilken finished with 20 points, while McKenzie Cochran had 15, Delaney Noe had 13 and Faith Wilken had 12.

Page’s Season Ends with Semifinal Loss to Dickson

By Parker BellNSP Contributor

The Brentwood Academy Lady Eagles never gave the St. Agnes Stars a chance in their out-of-hand 72 – 30 home win in the Division II-AA quarter-finals.

“We’re a good team, because we play together,” said BA coach Rhonda Brown. “They share the ball.”

With the ball being shared there were plenty of points to go around. Blair Schoenwald piled on 12 and Caroline Clemmer finished with 10, while Maggie Brown led the team with 20.

Playing her last game on BA’s home court, Avery Kovick added 9 points to the team total.

“She’s my only senior, so she means a lot to the team,” coach Brown. “So, it was fun to get out there and play hard.”

The team played with tenacity from the start, taking a 23 – 7 lead over the Stars at the end of the first quarter.

They began the game with a 11 – 0 run after St. Agnes scored the first 2 points. From then on, it was smooth sailing.

Brentwood Academy kept attack-ing, going into the half with a 40 – 15 lead. And by the end of the third quarter, with the help of 10 points from Maggie Brown, their relent-

less offense stacked on 24 more.The Lady Eagles move on to

play Father Ryan in the semi-fi-nals Thursday night at the home of Limpscomb University Bisons bas-ketball, Allen Arena.

“We’ve been there before,” said coach Brown on Father Ryan, a team they beat by 10 in their last regular season game. “We’re pretty familiar with each other.”

On the boys’ side of Brentwood Academy Basketball, the Eagles

topped Memphis University School 42 – 36 in the quarter-finals at home, taking one step closer to their fifth straight D-II title.

Marcus Fitzgerald and Eli Sutton who were out of the lineup last out-ing in their win against Father Ryan, returned to the court. Star player Randy Brady, who is out with an in-jury, did not return.

After a tight first quarter that end-ed with a 9 – 8 lead for BA, the Eagles edged out the Owls. The

half ended in a buzzer-beater from Devyn Curtis, taking them into the locker room with a 24 – 16 lead.

After 8 more minutes of play, the Eagles still lead but only by 6. While the Owls fought back, it wasn’t enough in the end.

Cory Reynolds led the team with 16 points, followed by BJ Davis with 9 and Fitzgerald with 7.

Brentwood Academy play Baylor in the semi-finals Thursday at Lip-scomb University.

Brentwood Academy’s Felicity Chandler puts pressure on the ball as the rest of her teammates cover their players during this inbounds play against St. Agnes.

Photo by Parker Bell

6 Nashville Sports Publications February 27, 2019

Bowl Officials Release Games’ Economic ImpactFranklin American Mortgage Mu-

sic City Bowl officials are pleased to announce the 2018 Bowl had a $24.6 million direct economic im-pact on Nashville’s economy. As one of Nashville’s biggest annual events, the Bowl has produced ap-proximately $335 million in total direct economic impact for the city in its 21-year history. In addition, the Bowl produced $19.2 million in media exposure value for the City of Nashville, as calculated by Spon-sorship Science, a third party orga-nization.

“We’re proud to be associated with one of the biggest events in Nashville each year,” said Scott Tansil, Executive Vice President at Franklin American Mortgage Company. “The Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl always makes a tremendous impact on our community, and it’s an honor to partner with so many dedicated and hardworking people to make it hap-pen.”

Prior to kickoff, Sports Illustrat-ed named the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl one

of the top 4 bowl games to watch outside of the College Football Playoffs. A crowd of 59,024 fans watched as the Auburn Tigers de-feated the Purdue Boilermakers 63-14 on Dec. 28 at Nissan Stadi-um. This year’s game attendance was the 3rd highest attended game outside of the New Year’s Six bowl games. A total of 25,732 hotel room nights were booked with over 70% of fans in attendance at the game

being from out-of-town. “We are proud that the Bowl

continues to generate a positive economic impact for the City of Nashville and our sponsors. Nash-ville has proven itself as a popular destination for all football fans over the 21-year history of the game, and we appreciate the support of the Nashville community in making it a great success each year,” said Scott Ramsey, President and CEO,

Franklin American Mortgage Mu-sic City Bowl.

Since 2001, the Bowl has used the Nashville Sports Council’s nation-ally recognized Scorecard report to measure the impact and effective-ness of sporting events on the local economy. The Scorecard measures economic impact, media exposure and community involvement based on ratings and surveys from partic-ipants, spectators, volunteers and media that attend the event.

About the Bowl:The Franklin American Mort-

gage Music City Bowl (501(c)(3) non-profit organization) is an an-nual post-season collegiate Bowl featuring the Atlantic Coast or Big Ten and Southeastern Conferences. Since its inception, the Bowl has produced over $335 million in di-rect economic impact. Distributed nationally to millions of viewers and listeners on ESPN and ESPN Radio, the Bowl is Nashville’s Holiday Tradition. For more in-formation, call the Bowl office at 615.743.3130 or visit the Bowl on-line at MusicCityBowl.com.

Auburn’s Jarrett Stidham (8) holds up the MVP Music City Bowl trophy. Auburn Tigers vs. Purdue Boilermakers in the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl on Friday, Dec. 28, 2018, in Nashville, Tenn.

Photo special to NSP

February 27, 2019 Nashville Sports Publications 7

Supporting the

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Hillsboro Defeats Ravenwood in QuarterfinalsBy Chip CirilloNSP Contributor

Rodney Thweatt started Raven-wood’s basketball program in 2002.

He ended the Raptors’ season Sat-urday when he coached Hillsboro to a 57-48 win in a Region 6-AAA quarterfinal at Brentwood.

“It’s been so long I don’t even re-member being there, to be honest with you,” Thweatt said. “But I did recognize some of the same traits -- heart, toughness -- that they dis-tilled when I was there.”

His son, Rodney Jr., got lost crawling around the school during Thweatt’s first practice at Raven-wood as a 1-year-old youngster. He’s a starter for the Burros now.

Thweatt coached Ravenwood for four seasons before taking the job at Hillsboro

The Burros (22-7) jumped out to a 17-3 lead early int the second quar-ter, forcing Ravenwood (11-16) to play catch-up the rest of the way.

“We’ve been doing that a lot late-ly,” Thweatt said. “It’s funny be-cause at the beginning of the year it

was the reverse. We would always fall down 19-1, have to come back and end up losing by a few points.”

Darrow Parrish led the Burros with 20 points. Ryan Wilcox added 10 points and 10 rebounds and Te-hlor Buford came off the bench to score 10.

Ravenwood outscored Hillsboro 23-14 in the fourth quarter, but nev-er got closer than seven.

“I thought they would make a run,

but I thought we could withstand it and we did,” Thweatt said.

Hillsboro played Brentwood in Tuesday’s semifinals.

Chase Siebert led Ravenwood with 16 points, but he was the only Raptor in double figures. Raven-wood shot just 36.4 percent from the floor.

“(Hillsboro) shot the ball better than we had hoped,” said Raptors coach Patrick Whitlock, who fin-

ished his 13th year with the Raptors. “I told them in the locker room this is the most fun I’ve had coaching in a long time in a period where, to be quite honest, I didn’t even know if I would come back for this season, but they’ve re-energized me.

“I went through a lot personally in the last couple of years, things that probably took away from basketball a little bit, and these kids – they had my back. I’ll forever be thankful for this group. You go through things that test you as a person.

“This group, I don’t want to say they’ve saved my coaching career, but I was ecstatic to go to practice every day and I’m just sad it’s over.”

Ravenwood lost four or five play-ers to Nolensville’s third-year pro-gram.

“I don’t think anybody thought we would be here, but when we went over to Centennial eight days ago we knew we would be here,’ Whitlock said of Ravenwood’s Dis-trict 11-AAA win that qualified the Raptors for their first region appear-ance since 2014. “We were very confident going into that game.”

Ravenwood’s Trevor Andrews tries to get a shot off against a tight defense from Hillsboro. Photo by Jennifer Spradlin

8 Nashville Sports Publications February 27, 2019