Harding Athletic Highlights - October 21, 2022

Jason Embry
Middle School Basketball Tryout Dates 
Friday, November 4 - Girls Tryouts 3:30pm-5:00pm
Friday, November 4 - Boys Tryouts 3:30pm-5:00pm
Saturday, November 5 - Boys Tryouts 9:30am-11:00am
Saturday, November 5 - Girls Tryouts 11:00am-12:30pm

Developmental Basketball
We wanted to be in touch with some important information about basketball season at Harding Academy. An adaptation we made to Covid two years ago was to create a developmental team on the boys side which proved to be a huge success for the growth of those less experienced players. We played a series of intrasquad "blue vs. white" games where officials were assigned and they played games against each other in our gym. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive so we have decided to keep that model moving forward. Last year, we duplicated that model for our girls. 
 
Our boys participation numbers are traditionally in the mid 40's and our girls in the mid 20's so we are looking at opening up girls basketball to 5th graders for our developmental team. The numbers may be such that we only have a varsity girls team and a developmental team. We feel a situation where our girls can learn and develop while playing against each other is much better than playing opponents who cut players and have JV teams that may be as talented as some varsity teams in our conference. 

Harding Wrestling Starts Season With Win
The Harding varsity wrestling team opened its season on the road, traveling to Hendersonville for a dual meet against Pope Prep on Thursday, Oct. 20. The Hawks won 9 of the 12 matches wrestled leading to a resounding victory over the Knights, 54-15. 

Winning contested matches for Harding Academy were Ben Lucas '25, Grant Song '23, Quinn Taylor '23, and Ripley Bickerstaff '25. Brody Maddox '25, Luke Fields '23 and Jackson Lucas '23 all won via forfeit as Pope Prep did not have wrestlers in their weight classes. 

The Hawks enter a tough week next week with matches against the Nashville Catholic club team on Tuesday, Oct. 25 and MBA on Thursday, Oct. 27. Both matches will take place in the Roberts Gymnasium on Harding's campus at 4:30pm. Come out and support the wrestling Hawks!!
 
Please reach out to Coach Jason Embry for any questions on the boys program or Coach Luke Countryman for any questions on the girls program. We are confident this is the best model for development in our basketball program. 

Boys JV Soccer Defeats St. Paul 5-2
Great start to the season with a win against St. Paul. It was nice to finally put on the uniforms and apply what we learned in practice. I thought we played well as a team and everyone showed a lot of hustle to the ball. We took a few too many touches at times which led to turnovers but we really cleaned everything up in the second half and were able to close out the win with a few extra goals. We're looking forward to today's home game against Pope Prep at 5:15. Come out and support the Hawks!

Girls Varsity Soccer Defeats USN 4-1
Harding Girls' Soccer defeated USN 4-1 in their season opener Wednesday night. USN scored first with 13 minutes left in the first half to make the score 1-0. Harding fought back and entered halftime up 2-1. Harding finished up the second half scoring 2 more goals to solidify the win. 7th grader Hilary Fremont scored 3 goals and 6th grader Louisa Smith scored 1. Claire McDaniel, Stella Frisbee, Margaux Brown, Annie Thurman, and Greer Bodzy held down the defensive end limiting USN's scoring opportunities. Harding girls' soccer is back in action this Monday 10/24 at 4 o'clock against Valor Academy. Go Hawks! 
Back
Inspiring The Mind  •  Nurturing The Spirit