Eagles Sports in Review

By Ken Sanders – Sports Information Director

December 11th 2009

Eagle Basketball

The men ended the fall semester with two out of three wins as they defeated Johnson Bible, Piedmont Baptist and lost to Valley Forge. This brought the Eagles record to 6 – 5.

In the Valley Forge loss the Eagles were only one point from the visitors as the halftime score was 30 – 31. Toccoa came alive early in the second half as they outscored Valley Forge 11 to 4 in the first two minutes. However the Eagles then went cold from the field and VJ went on to outscore the Eagles 38 to 20. The main difference in the play was the turnovers the Eagles had for the game. The Eagles gave up the ball to VJ 32 times and were out rebounded on the offensive end 23 to 7. The final score was Valley Forge 73 Toccoa Falls 62.

The Eagles had three players in double figures as Jon Rychener had 20; Chris Grover with 15; and Sanchez Baggett with 10.

In the second game the Eagles took a win from Johnson Bible, 83 – 66. Toccoa took an early lead in the first half on the hot hand of Rychener, who led all scorers with 15 points. Rychener had six field goals, two of them being three pointers. He would continue his good shooting in the second half collecting 12 more points to end up with 27 for the night.

The Eagles had a 40 – 28 half time lead after the first half of play and Coach Martin would provide opportunity for every player to get some action in the second half. All nine players for the Eagles would get into the score column. Jachin Wettstone would end up with 16 points; followed by Baggett and Grover who had 9 each.

The Eagles next opponent was Piedmont Baptist and came away with another win. The score was 74 – 52. The Eagles would start out slow as they managed only 23 points at the half way mark and were behind PBC 23 – 27. Rychener was held to 5 points in the half, and the rest of the Eagles were not hitting open shots. However, the Eagles turned it around in the second half and began to make their shots and not turn the ball over to Johnson. TFC would outscore JBC in the second half 51 to 24 and secure their 6th win, 74 – 52.

Rychener would catch fire in the second period as he scored 22 points, with 9 field goals and 2 for 2 from the charity stripe. Second leading scorer for TFC was Wettstone who ended up with 13 points.

Lady Eagles

The TFC women had a tough three games to close out the semester. The Eagles lost to Ohio Christian, 44 – 76; defeated Johnson Bible 49 – 47; and lost a heart breaker to Piedmont Baptist, 58 – 60.

In the game against Ohio Christian, they played against one of the top NCCAA Division II schools in the nation. The Eagles just could not find the basket the first half and fell behind 26 to 40 at intermission. The only player to have the hot hand for TFC was Bonnie McGee, who led the team with 11 points.

The second half proved to be no better for the Eagles as they managed just 18 points and Ohio Christian had 36. One of the big discretions in the game was the number of turnovers the Eagles had compared to Ohio. TFC turned the ball over 33 times as compared to just 18 for the visitors. The rebounding margin also went to Ohio as they out rebounded TFC 36 to 43. The shooting percentages for Toccoa were 35 percent compared to 52 percent Ohio shot.

Leading scorer for the Eagles was McGee with 13 points and Sarah Colquitt followed with 12. Only five players would score for Toccoa. Bright spot for the Eagles was the scoring of Colquitt, who had all 12 points in the second period as she had six field goals.

In the game against Johnson Bible the Eagles took the half time lead 22 to 18. The Eagles had a 19 to 7 lead with 10 minutes left in the half. Then the Eagles hit the wall to only score 3 more points before intermission. This brought JBC to within 4 points at the half. The second half proved to be a back and forth contest with neither team getting more than a five point lead. In the last minutes of play, Kelly Skelley and Michaela Estill two important field goals; and Amanda Ferrell made one of two free throws. The last points scored was a JBC three pointer with 3 seconds remaining to bring the visitors to within 2 points, but short of the win.

Ferrell and Skelley led the team in scoring with 13 and McGee followed with 11 points. Michaela Estill led the Eagles in rebounding with 10.

The next home game for TFC was against region opponent, Piedmont Baptist College. The Eagles lost a tough one as in the last minutes of the game the lead was lost and off a missed free throw Piedmont rebounded and put back the winning goal.

The halftime score was 28 – 33, the Eagles behind by 5 points. In the second half the lead was never more than 4 points between the two teams. At the 2:40 minute mark the Eagles had a 58 to 54 lead, but the rest of the way Toccoa would not score again. Piedmont went on to make the last 6 points of the game to take a 58 – 60 win from the Eagles. The last basket was taken by Piedmont with less than 3 seconds to go. Four turnovers by the Eagles in the last minutes play kept the home team from winning their 6th game of the season. TFC out rebounded Piedmont 50 to 38, but their 30 turnovers was the difference. The TFC record now stands at 5 – 5.

McGee had 21 points and Skelley had a double/double with 21 points and 13 rebounds. Michaela Estill continued to be aggressive on the boards with 10 rebounds and 4 steals.

Lady Volleyball

The volleyball team had their best record in several years as they finished the season 22 – 11. The result of this season’s record was seen in the recognition by the NCCAA as several players for the Eagles were honored for their accomplishments. Bethany Slate and Mary Willis were awarded 1st Team All-Region of the South Region. Slate was also awarded 1st team All-American for the NCCAA Division II. The encouraging note is that both these ladies are freshmen and will return next year. Kaylyn Roedding also received NCCAA Division II the Scholar Athlete Award.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 11th, 2009 at 2:15 pm and is filed under Current News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.