Basketball: Bouncing back

Senior biology major Sarah Ward from Elberton, Ga., one of the Golden Tigers' NAIA Scholar-Athlete designees, returns to her guard position on the 2012-13 team.
Senior biology major Sarah Ward from Elberton, Ga., one of the Golden Tigers’ NAIA Scholar-Athlete designees, returns to her guard position on the 2012-13 team.

Brenau’s Golden Tigers posted a 13-17 record during its rebuilding season under a new, head coach, Kris Stewart. However, the cagers, playing in the Southern States Athletics Conference, one of the toughest in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, chalked it up as a successful, experience- and confidence-building campaign. Eight of the losses came in close contests with nationally ranked teams and two of those in overtime games.  The result, says Stewart, is the Tigers “feel very confident about their growth and experience going into a new season,” which opens at home Nov. 20.

Brenau returns eleven players, including five seniors, from last year’s squad. But Stewart also has attracted three new players for the 2012-13 team: Anikee Combee, a 5-foot 10-inch forward on the Arlington Christian School team in Fairburn that has won four consecutive Georgia AAA championships; Myka Lightfoot, a 5 foot 7 inch shooting guard who led North Atlanta High School in several offensive categories and to a state playoff berth; and Claire Zimmerman, a 5-foot 8-inch guard from Woodstock, (Ga.) High School, who was part of a first-place regional team and was a Vince Dooley Award nominee for her outstanding academic and athletic performance.

Meanwhile, two Brenau juniors were among 127 NAIA Division I basketball players from around the nation named to 2012 Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athletes roster: marketing major and Delta Sigma Theta member Jasmyn Farmer of Lilburn, Ga., and Sarah Ward  of Elberton, Ga., a biology major. “Jasmyn and Sarah are wonderful representatives of both Brenau University and our basketball program,” says Stewart. “This recognition is well deserved. I am very proud of their commitment to academic success.”

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