Sports shorts: Week of 9/22/22

Golf

The Junior River Cup is a Ryder Cup style event that pits the best junior golfers in the state of Texas against the best junior golfers from Mississippi. One of Beaumont’s own, Reece Williams, who is a student at St. Anne’s Catholic School, was asked to compete.

Williams defeated Taylor Wright of Mississippi by the score of 8-6.

CASA of Southeast Texas will host their second annual golf tournament Friday, Oct. 28, at Brentwood Country Club (4201 S Major Dr.) in Beaumont. This 18-hole, four-person scramble begins at 8 a.m. Cost is $350 per team. Those interested in competing or sponsoring can do so by calling (409) 832-2272.

Funds raised from this event will be used to support CASA of Southeast Texas Inc. in their vision of advocating for a safe, permanent home for every child in foster care.

Lamar Cardinals

Things have gone great for LU’s women’s soccer team as of late. To date, LU has a 6-0-1 record including a 3-0 conference record and multiple Southland Conference Players of the Week. Once again, another successful week has led to more accolades as Nichole Panis earned her third conference goalkeeper of the week while Cariel Ellis picked up her first career offensive player of the week honors.

For Panis, this is the second straight week she was the winner of the award. This past week, she led LU to two wins against two of the top teams in the conference in Northwestern State and Texas A&M-Commerce. Against the Demons, Panis recorded four saves, but three of them came in the second half at critical points as LU preserved the 2-0 shutout victory. This marked the third straight shutout performance for the Netherlands native.
Two days later, despite giving up a goal to the Lions, Panis managed five saves and was able to keep LU in the game as they rallied from 1-0 to a 3-1 win. Panis remains the SLC leader in goals against average (.437), saves (33), save percentage (.917), and shutouts (four).

Meanwhile, Ellis was a spark plug for the Cardinals’ offense in the two wins. The former Tennessee Volunteer and native of Mississippi scored game-winners in both contests. She broke the 0-0 tie in the 67th minute against NSU. Against AMC, Ellis scored in the 82nd minute to give a 2-1 lead before she assisted on the third goal to Christine Kitaru. Ellis also is tied for second in the conference with five goals and shots on goal with 10.

LU will travel to Louisiana on Sunday, Sept. 25, to play Nicholls State at 1 p.m.
Sophomore defensive lineman Jack McCarthy was named Southland Conference Special Teams Player of the Week. It marks the second time in as many weeks that a Cardinal has been named league special teams player of the week.
At the end of the first half, Northern Colorado lined up for a 35-yard field goal attempt with seconds remaining in the half, but McCarthy managed to knife his way through the line to bat the ball away, keeping the score at a seven-point margin.
The Cardinals, now 0-3, return to action Saturday, Sept. 24, when they travel to Natchitoches, Louisiana., to open Southland Conference play against Northwestern State (0-3) at 3:30 p.m.

Although the start of the basketball season is still a couple months away, the men’s basketball team has been busy not only getting ready for the season, but also helping their fellow man.

The Cardinals spent part of last Saturday at St. Anne Catholic Church and School helping package approximately 271,000 freeze-dried meals, which will be sent to more than 700 school children in Uganda. The meals are expected to feed children for the rest of the year.

“I saw a flyer at church about the Kids Around the World organization and their work trying to send food to Uganda because of the food shortage,” said head coach Alvin Brooks. “After hearing more about it, I realized this is something that would be good for our team to be part of. I got with our assistant coaches, and we were able to make some calls and set it up where we could spend Saturday at St. Anne’s.”