MARIETTA, Ga. – Tevin Olison, Josh Williams, and Lamar Harris all recorded career-highs and combined for 82 points to lead the No. 11 Cumberlands men’s basketball team to a 107-105 conference road win over Life Saturday afternoon at the Bird Nest. With the win the Patriots improve to 8-2 on the season, including 2-2 in conference play, while the Running Eagles move to 4-3 overall and 0-3 against the MSC.

Olison led the way with a career-high 40, becoming just the 11^th Patriot and the first since Brad Gover in 1996 to score at least 40 points in a game.  As part of his career-high, Olison converted 20-25 from the charity stripe to set a new program record, breaking the previous record of 18 set by Bob Long vs. Rio Grande during the 1968-69 season.

Williams netted a career-high 25 points in the win, while Harris finished with 17 points and nine rebounds, which were both career-highs.  Austin Hall chipped in ten points as Steven Fitzgerald dished out a team-high five assists to go along with six rebounds.

Cumberlands came out strong with four different Patriots all draining a three-pointer in the first six minutes to give UC a 12-8 advantage.  A couple minutes later, Lamar Harris notched a transition slam dunk, followed by a lay-up on the next possession to extend UC’s lead to 16-13 with 10:43 remaining.  The Running Eagles tied the game at 16-16 before Cumberlands went on an 8-0 run, which was capped off by hustle defense that result in a steal and three-pointer from Tevin Olison to give UC a 24-16 lead with 7:05 remaining.  Coming out of a media timeout, Isaiah Thompson scored three consecutive points as part of a 5-0 run to extend their lead to 31-21.  Life cut the lead to three points, however, buckets from Josh Williams, Olison, and Thompson put UC in front 48-37 at the break. The Patriots finished the first half shooting 64% from the field, including 60% from behind-the-arc.

The Patriots strong offensive performance continued into the second half as both Hall and Williams drained a three, while Harris notched a fast break dunk to extend Cumberlands lead to 58-41 four minutes into the second half.  The two teams traded buckets over the next two minutes, before Life went on a 10-2 run to cut the lead to 70-61 with 11:50 remaining.  Olison netted the next seven Patriot points to keep UC’s advantage at ten, 77-67, midway through the second half.  Cumberlands outscored Life 13-7 over the next four minutes to extend their lead to 90-76.  The Running Eagles responded with a 14-5 run of their own to cut the lead to 95-90 with 1:31 remaining.  Needing a big defensive stop, Olison stripped Zack Stewart, one of his four steals in the game, and made the lay-up to push the lead back to seven points.  In the final 90 seconds of the game, Cumberlands converted 10-12 from the foul line to seal the 107-105 win.

This game marks just the second time under Head Coach Don Butcher that the Patriots scored over 100 points in a conference game.  The other time game on Feb. 9, 2016 win UC defeated Campbellsville 116-115 in five overtimes.  Olison’s 40 points is tied for the sixth most in the NAIA this season, while his 20 made free throws is tops in the country.

The Patriots will return to the court Thursday, December 31, when they travel to Portsmouth, OH to face Shawnee State in a conference matchup.  Tipoff is scheduled for 4 p.m. with live stats available here and live video available here.

The post Trio of Patriots notch career highs in win over Running Eagles appeared first on Southeast Sports Net.

DAVENPORT – The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics crowned cheer and dance national champions on Saturday in Iowa.

Concordia (Mich.) took the competitive cheer title for the first time, while Midland won its second competitive dance championship in three years.

The NAIA is the only national athletic organization to offer national championships in competitive cheer and dance as recognized sports and this is the third year for this event.

St. Ambrose University hosted the championships this Saturday in the first of a two-year deal. The SAU staff took care of fans, attendees and competitors and expedited well the business of the day each day. And the Lee Lohman Arena had plenty of space for the groups to warm up and get ready for performances. However, the competition venue did not.

Only the bleachers on the south side of the gym due to the way the court was set up for the competition. With seat-back chairs and bleachers, there was a seating capacity of 456. Additional temporary bleachers were brought in to seat another 126, bringing the total to 582. But there were more 800 fans in the gymnasium both Friday and Saturday. Add this number to the number of competitors, coaches and staff who were watching other performances, and there were many people standing or sitting crowded on the floor.

There were other issues which had much more impact on the competition itself involving the music played and the judges themselves.

Staff photo.

In a competition like this one, there is music that accompanies each performance. The total running time of the music played has to fall within a certain window – in this case, the minimum is 1:45 and max time in 2:15.

On prelims day, when the University of Cumberlands performed its cheer team’s routine, the music was not quite right. But the team couldn’t just stop midway through. Once it had started, they continued.

The group did its entire performance with the audio accompaniment and then walked off unceremoniously at the end with no set ending. One of the girls who performed looked at the crowd and said, “That’s not our music.”

Corissa Dyer, head coach of the UC cheerleading program, expanded on that statement.

“I couldn’t be more proud of how they performed with the circumstances that were given to them,” Dyer said. “Their music actually documented at a time of 2:07 when it was turned in. But after (the prelim performance), I ran over to the D.J. real quick and it was a 2:27 routine. So the music was 20 seconds longer than it should have been.

“That’s hard to perform a cheer routine at that slow a pace. Luckily, they were all on the same page to go with their own counts and to keep going and hit a perfect routine with zero deductions. There were a few timing mess-ups at the beginning because that’s when they were realizing that wasn’t their music, but once they all got on the same page, it was good one.”

Dyer said she wanted to speak to the head judge because she was first worried about a time deduction, as the new time is 12 seconds beyond the limit.

“My second concern was that although we hit a solid routine, they were a little frazzled. They were all looking at each other like deer in the headlights. I don’t know if we were given the option, but I didn’t know if I wanted to push to do the routine again, gambling since we hit our first one.

University of the Cumberlands cheer team. Staff photo.

“Overall, my team is really proud of the way they performed. You know, they were a little let down. You work all year to come a national championship event and that’s a let-down. These teams have been working since August, and for that to happen in the prelims… Luckily we checked it (the music) twice before finals.”

UC was in 10th place after the prelims and finished sixth overall in cheer.

At least one more team had a similar issue. Oklahoma City University’s dance team’s music was altered as well. But it wasn’t slowed down.

OCU dance team coach Tasha Hinex confirmed that the music played during her team’s preliminary competition performance was more than six seconds shorter than the music that had been submitted. It had been sped up.

This means her team had to perform its routine in less time than that it had been practicing it for months.

OCU was in sixth place following Day One and finished the competition in fifth place.

It brings up the question as to how something like this could happen in that one team’s altered music was slower and another’s altered music was faster.

A side-by-side comparison of the two performances from the weekend with music at different speeds can be viewed HERE.

The judges were another point of interest during this event. Not the judging, necessarily – although because judging has a subjective tone to it, there will always be some difference of opinion as to how things are seen. No, not the judging in this instance, but the judges.

Baker University dance team. Staff photo.

Andie Stitt was listed as the head judge for the dance competition.

She choreographed the dance routine used by Baker University for this season. Baker competed as one of the 12 teams in the 2019 national competition.

She was a judge in the Southeast Region qualifying competition, in which Baker competed to get to advance to nationals.

The optics of this are terrible. One of the categories to be judged is choreography (Section D.1.g in the 2018-2019 NAIA Competitive Dance Rulebook). Here is a list of things that are now at play at the national competition. If:

• Stitt judges her own work in the choreography category for Baker’s performance, this is a direct conflict of interests.
• Stitt recuses herself from judging the choreography category for Baker’s performance, this is now a scenario in which BU can’t get the total number of points possible from this judge, hurting Baker’s score. (Unless a number is just placed there arbitrarily).
→ However even then, if she still judges other teams’ choreography, she is now judging it against her own work. Still a conflict of interests.
• Stitt recuses herself from judging the choreography category for all teams’ performances, then why is she a judge in the first place, if she can’t adequately fulfill her duties?

From her Instagram page:

View this post on Instagram

I only have the best things to say about this team!!! So fun to come in and work with you all for a short time last night! Y’all killed it and I’m so amped to see you do this choreography! Plus, I got to see my babies @ayyyee_keke and @g_chambers98 ! Missed y’all! thanks for having me @bakerdanceteam

A post shared by Andie Stitt (@andiestitt10) on Jan 4, 2019 at 8:58am PST

This is not to formally say that something has been done wrong. But again – the optics. This is not a good look.

On her Instagram account, Stitt has pictures with other teams for whom she has done choreography. However, none are with any of the other teams at the 2019 NAIA national competition.

A last thought is that with four (or more) judges for cheer or for dance, it might be in order to have judges from each of the four regions.

In the dance category, the Southwest region was not represented by a judge from that region. And in cheer, neither the Southwest nor the were represented.

It was an exciting weekend to watch once again and there are opportunities to make this event better in the future.

The post NAIA Cheer and Dance at Year Three – still room for improvement appeared first on Southeast Sports Net.