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(02/23/17 4:13am)
A native of Fayetteville, Georgia, Kevin Yoggy is gearing up to play in his final season for the Mercer Bears. Yoggy’s older brother Eric also played for the men’s lacrosse team, and the two played together during the 2014 and 2015 seasons.
For his career, including the team’s season-opening loss to Vermont, Yoggy has eight goals and one assist on 24 shots. Against Vermont, Yoggy had two goals on five shots and was penalized once in the 13-12 overtime loss.
“It was great. I mean you obviously want to end with a win. It was a good game, I mean obviously Vermont’s a good program . . . they’re a winning program for sure,” Yoggy said about the loss. “It’s honestly a game we should have won, a game we want back, but we’re going to take that intensity and move on to the next one.”
On March 2, the Bears will host the Michigan Wolverines at Five Star Stadium. Yoggy is looking forward to playing Michigan, after losing to the Wolverines in Michigan in 2014.
“We have kind of a chip on our shoulders; it’s going to be a fun game for us,” said Yoggy.
After high school Yoggy wanted to follow his brother, Eric, to play for the Bears. As a result of this connection, Yoggy was able to get a clear picture of how the program operated.
“My whole high school career I pretty much had Mercer in mind . . . I was on campus maybe six or seven times before I actually committed,” Yoggy said. “I love the campus, I love everything about it. The team was really tight, I think that’s what really got me to come here. Because other programs are kind of cliquey I guess, but for us every single person on the team is best friends with every single person and that was huge for me.”
Yoggy is an engineering major at Mercer. In fact, he says the engineering school factored into his decision to attend. For his plans after college, Yoggy is still weighing his options.
“I’m working on internship stuff this summer,” he said. “I would like to work in the mechanical engineering field, but honestly I don’t have too many plans which is kind of scary, but it kind of is what it is.”
When asked about his lacrosse plans after graduation, Yoggy said he has no plans to fully step away from the game.
“I love to play lacrosse in just some men’s leagues, probably not anything professional, but men’s leagues, summer ball, stuff like that,” Yoggy said. “I love to coach, to pass the game on to younger generations.”
(01/27/17 1:00pm)
Mercer students, through their on-campus organizations, have been attending Macon Mayhem games as a way to raise funds or just have a night out. The university’s Greek organizations have been among the most frequent participants.
The Mayhem are a single-A level minor league ice hockey team. Currently in their second season of operation, the Mayhem markets these group night packages as a way to introduce new fans to the sport and team, but also to connect with the Macon community.
On Saturday, Jan. 21, the brothers of Pi Kappa Phi and some of their friends and family attended the Mayhem game.
By buying the tickets from the team in bulk and reselling them to brothers and other guests at a higher value, the fraternity was able to raise money for its charity of choice, The Ability Experience, a charity to help those battling with disabilities.
“We had an amazing time at the game. It was a great opportunity to bond as brothers, raise money for disabled people and develop a stronger relationship with the Macon Community,” said Pi Kappa Phi Philanthropy Chair Joshua Sizemore. “All in all, you won’t find a better experience in Macon.”
Currently the team’s primary method of contacting Mercer students has been through brochures that you may have seen around campus as well as word of mouth. Colin Mitchell, a brother of Pi Kappa Phi, is game day operations staff for the Mayhem and has been behind the promotion.
Pi Kappa Phi isn’t the only Mercer greek organization to attend a Mayhem game. Recently the sisters of Alpha Gamma Delta also went to a game for a date night.
“We had a great time.” Jessica Landress said. “The section we were in made it easy to talk with our friends while enjoying the game. The shootout was our favorite part and the entire crowd were on their feet cheering.”
(11/17/16 12:57am)
As the Mercer Bears football program heads into the final stretch of their fourth season since rebooting the sport, there are many signs pointing to the success of the fledgling team. Regardless of the team’s record this season, over the past month the team has been visited by three scouts from National Football League organizations.
The Bears have 29 seniors on the roster so any scout analyzing the Mercer team will be able to see a large body of potential players. Two of the three scouts who have visited the team represent the Tennessee Titans and the Indianapolis Colts.
Neither Mercer staff nor team personnel would comment on the specific players being evaluated, but a quick look at both of the aforementioned teams’ depth charts leads one to believe that there is a defensive focus. Of the 29 seniors for the Bears, 14 are defensive players, but for the remaining 13 offensive players there is still a chance of impressing the scouts enough to earn a tryout opportunity.
Head Coach Bobby Lamb spoke about the arrival of the scouts and what it means for his program.
“It says a lot about our program and our players. Any time you have a senior class...the pro scouts are like the college scouts. We go to different schools, bigger schools, smaller schools to recruit kids and the pro scouts do the same. We've got more coming by this week and as the season goes on, that's what [the scouts] do. It says a lot about our program right now. Hopefully they'll all come back next year as well,” Lamb said.
Mercer senior defensive back Zach Jackson also weighed in on the presence of professional scouts.
"It's a great feeling. I remember being a freshman and sophomore at TCU and seeing scouts come out to practice almost every day and thinking, 'what would it be like to be a senior and have that happen?' So, it happening now is enough to realize someone might have their dreams come true. It's a great feeling but at the end of the day, we may only have three games left and we just want to win those games. Anything can happen after that; nothing is guaranteed," Jackson said.
In speaking with both men, the pride in the program was palpable. Both were very pleased and the hosting of NFL scouts is a concrete indication of the program’s success. For a program as young as the one at Mercer, these last four years have been a strong start, but the real test will come next year. When the current seniors walk across the graduation stage and into the real world, the players who step into their place, and what coach Lamb can do with those players, will be the real test. If the current trend for Mercer football continues, in another four years’ time, one could look at a program known across the state and the Southern Conference for producing top flight talent.
(11/01/16 9:14pm)
After a successful regular season and a third place berth in the Southern Conference women’s soccer tournament, the Lady Bears took to the pitch to face sixth-ranked Chattanooga on Sunday evening. The last time these two teams met resulted in a 2-1 Chattanooga win in overtime October 2.
The match would start off slowly, especially for the Bears, who very early on watched senior defender Corinne Wooten leave the field nursing an injury, forcing Mercer to play without her for 12 to 13 minutes.
During this time the Chattanooga Mocs started attacking the Mercer end with a much quicker pace and were able to earn themselves eight corner kicks by the end of the first half. The Mocs also put five shots towards net in the opening frame, none of which found the net or challenged Bears’ goalkeeper Cristina Mursuli.
A quick half without many stoppages in play would result in a tie headed into halftime. The Bears were outshot five to two and had earned only a single corner kick to the Mocs’ eight.
The half allowed the Bears to get a breather and refocus their offensive strategy. Mercer came out quickly and started peppering the ball towards net. At the 55-minute mark, junior striker Valeria Bermeo would put the Bears ahead 1-0.
Bermeo received the ball on an excellent pass by senior midfielder Jamilah Tejan, who fought off a double team with sharp dribbling to set up the score. Seven minutes later and it would be Tejan again facilitating offense, settling down a header from freshman Megan Delmonico, then crossing the ball to redshirt senior Maddie Clark who would bury the ball into the top left corner of the goal, 2-0 Mercer.
Three minutes later -- after one of Chattanooga’s three fouls in the period -- Bermeo set up for a free kick about 10 yards past midfield. Her shot, a line-drive style kick, would deflect cleanly in off of the head of a Mocs’ defender, 3-0 Mercer.
The Lady Bears would keep the pressure up through the rest of the match, but it was the play of their backline and goalkeeper which sealed the shutout victory for the bears. Mursuli finished with two saves and no goals allowed in the full 90 minutes of play.
Sophomore defender Jordan Christensen and Wooten combined to be an effective force defensively taking away the majority of Chattanooga chances before they had a chance to materialize.
STARS OF THE GAME:
Maddie Clark: Four shots, three of them on goal, and one goal made for a good afternoon from Clark. Not obvious on the stat sheet was her effort in the first half to stretch the defense and make long runs to take the pressure off her own backline.
Jamilah Tejan: One shot and two assists, but those two assists were both cases of excellent footwork and poise under pressure. Her assist on the eventual game winner resulted from her battling through a double team of defenders to get the ball through.
Valeria Bermeo: One shot, which was on goal, went into the net. The first goal of the game and eventual game winner, Bermeo helped send her Bears team into the semi-final with a win Sunday.
BEAR BITES:
Head coach Tony Economopolus on a defensive first half: “It’s taxing, I thought the first four minutes we came out with some energy, created some early chances with Maddie Clark, and when [Wooten] got hurt we had to play a man down for 12 to 15 minutes, and that's difficult in a game like this. We absorbed a lot of their pressure, and to come into halftime at 0-0, I was happy with us.”
On the second half: “We challenged our girls in the second half. We’re full strength now; let’s not be so hesitant and timid, and I thought we came out well, more energy, and that created several chances early on in the second half.”
On three goals in under 10 minutes: “It’s a testament to the team. We rested some girls, and we have a pretty deep bench, so we had some fuel and we said, ‘We’re gonna keep pushing,’ and for those 10 minutes we didn’t take our foot off the pedal. If we could play every game 0-0 at halftime and have that kind of second period performance, I would be happy.”
TAKEAWAY:
With the win the team advances to the semi-final of the SoCon Tournament, which will be played in Johnson City, Tennessee. The Bears will take on East Tennessee State at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 4. The game can be seen on the SoCon Digital Network.