Soccer, Jr. Lions grab victories

DAVID HUNTER
The Cannon Courier

Nasty weather has continued to play a factor for all the Cannon County Spring Sports team as some games this week were either rescheduled or cancelled. When matches were played, two Lions teams had historical victories last week.

Junior Lions Baseball
For over a year, the CCMG baseball team had not won a single game until March 31 when it went on the road and soundly defeated Boyd 10-0, which finally ended the very long losing streak.
"It feels good to finally have all of your hard work pay off, especially since we have been working hard for two years," eighth grader Brady Bryson said. "It is really rewarding to finally have a win."
Head coach Michael Bryson added, "It felt good. These guys have been playing good this year, our first two losses were only by two runs in one game, and one run in the other one. For them to finally break loose and shut a team down and generate some runs it felt great.
What makes this win even more special is it was a total team effort as Braxten Alexander pitched a no-hitter, including 11 strikeouts. Only two Boyd runners reached base, and none of them went past second base.
"They came together as a team, and I could of kind of seen it coming, because we had been real close lately," Michael Bryson said. "They finally stepped up and got them one."
"It was a little stressful now and then, some innings were good and some innings were bad," Alexander said. "Some innings were good, three up and three down."
The Bryson's got it done at the plate as Kyler scored twice, and Brady knocked in two RBIs. Seven out of the nine starters scored at least once as the Junior Lions scored twice in the first, second and fourth innings, they also put a four spot in the fifth inning.
"They were really glad and excited to win one," Alexander said.
CCMG was hoping to extend the streak this week, but both games at home against Boyd and at Thurman Francis were postponed due to weather.

CCHS Boys Soccer
The other local team to make history last week happened on the pitch as the Lions picked up their first ever win in school history over district power Merrol Hyde, 3-2 also on March 31.
"We are super proud of our guys," CCHS head coach Jeran Tenpenny said. "They worked really hard on (March 31). "We talked about where do we want to be? where do we want to take this program? We want to build a program that wins and competes in the district. We look at those programs like Merrol Hyde, Central Magnet, Smith County and DeKalb County. Those are the elite teams in our district, and they are the teams we want to compete with.
Corey Seymour scored in the first half for the Lions, which was even at 1 after 40 minutes. Halfway in the second half Qwentin McMackins converted a penalty kick to give CCHS a 2-1 advantage. MHS tied it at two, a few minutes later. Jake Walkup scored the game winner with 45 seconds left, which gave the Lions the dramatic upset victory, which the Lions improved to 2-0 in the district.
"So, (March 31), not only were we able to come out and do that, and we could get a win in such an impressive fashion," Tenpenny said. "I am so proud of our guys for the way they fought throughout the entire game. They never gave up when MHS scored first, that would have been the opportunity for us to lay down, but we fought back and tied the game up. We were just fortunate to be able to work the ball really well at the end of the game and put ourselves in position to score and take the win with under a minute left."
During the offseason, the Lions added some experienced soccer players to go along with the ones who came back and used to high school soccer. So far, the players have blended in well together, and they have found their scoring touch as they have averaged at least two goals in every match.