Lyon off to a great start in in first season of NCAA men’s & women’s basketball

BATESVILLE, Ark. (KAIT) - Temperatures are dropping but there’s red hot basketball in Batesville.

Both Lyon College squads are contending for conference championships in their first season in NCAA Division III.

Women’s basketball is 9-3 overall, 4-1 in St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play. Casey Fowler’s Scots scored a program record 144 points this past Saturday en route to their 5th straight win. Lyon beat Blackburn 144-53.

“My rule is don’t look at the score,” head coach Casey Fowler said. “Up or down, they don’t look at the score. So we didn’t go into the game looking to break records, we don’t ever do that. The only thing that I ask is they show up and play hard. You’re not going to score 144 every night. But on nights it clicks where you have 1 through 15 doing it, that can be pretty powerful. When you have people sharing the ball and moving it, that’s what happens.”

Batesville’s Zharia Childress had 14 points in the victory, Brookland’s Stella Parker added 6. Lyon is averaging 98 points a night, leading all levels of NCAA basketball

“Our posts kinda kickstart everything,” Childress said. “So making sure our guards has that post entry pass. That first initial pass, that first initial bucket we get from our post, it jumpstarts us on a run that’s kinda hard to stop.”

Men’s basketball is 8-3 overall and 1st place in the SLIAC. Head coach Rodney Mayes praised NEA natives Trenton Bell and John Paul Morgan.

“We had a little bit of inconsistency throughout our team, and they kinda stepped it up,” Mayes said. “Trenton Bell being from Cave City, right here. John Paul Morgan, being a local right here from Batesville, his toughness that he brings to our team. Really great leader, motivational guy for us. Just being the same basketball player every single night helps us out.”

Frank Toney is averaging 11 points and 4 assists per game for the Scots.

“It’s our pace, me pushing the pace,” Toney said. “Our wings running the floor, our bigs getting to dunker spot. Everybody being aggressive. Being good teammates. I think our last game, we had 17 or 20 assists in the 1st half. So just everybody playing as a team.”

Lyon hits the road this week for matchups at Greenville and Spalding University. They’re back home Thursday, January 18th. The Scots will host Westminster in a doubleheader starting at 5:30pm.