Men's Basketball

11/18/08 - The Enterprise-Ozark Community College Boll Weevils improved to 5-2 on the year with an 83-76 win against visiting Albany Technical College Tuesday in Ray Lolley Gym.

Michael Abbott led the Weevils in scoring with 19 points; Rodney Kennedy added 17 and Tremon Spencer chipped in 10 for EOCC.

Enterprise led 23-16 midway through the first half, 42-34 at intermission and 61-52 with 10 minutes to play.

The Weevils’ pressure defense held Albany in check late in the game, and a technical foul on the Albany bench produced 3 critical points as Kennedy calmly sank the shots with 2:45 to play.

The Weevils entertain the Huntingdon jayvees Thursday with a 7:30 p.m. tip-off expected.

Enterprise is at home Saturday against East Central Mississippi; tip-off is also slated for 7:30 p.m.

Lady Weevils Basketball

11/18/08 - The Enterprise-Ozark Community College Weevil Women won the first half of Tuesday’s game against the Darton College Cavaliers, 31-27.

The Cavaliers won the second half, 49-30.

That combination resulted in a 76-61 loss for EOCC that dropped the season record to 2-6 and marked the third time the Weevils have let a game slip away from them in the second half this season.

“To win in this game at any level, you have to be fundamentally sound,” said veteran EOCC coach Charles Cole. “In the second half, we were out-rebounded, out-shot and generally out-played.

“I didn’t see this one coming, as we played well in the first half but for some reason we missed free throws and lay-ups in the second half and that was the difference. Darton was patient in their offense and we were not.”

Kiara Henderson scored 24 points to lead the Weevils and Kendra McKinney added 16 points. Fortune Smith chipped in 8 points in the loss.

“We’ve got to get over this one, and make sure we don’t let those things we did wrong beat us again; we can do that by making sure we don’t make the same mistakes again,” Cole said.

Enterprise hosts East Central Mississippi Saturday; tip-off is set for 5:30 p.m.

Men's Basketball

11/17/08 - Four Enterprise-Ozark Community College Boll Weevils scored in double figures in an 80-73 victory against Bevill State-Sumiton Friday night in the EOCC gym.

Wendell Maye led the EOCC charge with 18 points; Rodney Kennedy added 15 points, Lanard Bryant chipped in 13 and Michael Abbott added 11 as the Weevils improved to 4-2

Tremon Spencer, Jonua Perry, Avery Stewart, Eddy Jean-Pierre, Roderick Moss, Matthew Dixon, and Michael McCree also scored for the Weevils.

“This was a team we’d previously beaten in overtime,” said second-year EOCC coach David James. “In this game we got into a 14-point run to take a good lead, but they came back on us and tied it with 7 or 8 minutes to play. But we pulled it out in the end for our third consecutive win.”

Enterprise has a busy schedule this week.

Tuesday, the Weevils entertain Albany Tech; Thursday Huntingdon’s jayvee team comes calling, and Saturday EOCC hosts East Central Mississippi; tip-off for each game is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.

“I scouted Albany Tech and they have a good team,” James concluded. “They’re 6-1 and the game with them should be a good one.”

Lady Weevils Basketball

11/17/08 - The Enterprise-Ozark Community College Boll Weevil Women improved to 2-5 on the season with an 83-65 win against Andrew College in Cuthbert, Ga., Saturday afternoon.

Fortune Smith led Enterprise with 16 points and was one of six Weevils in double figures.

Kiara Henderson and Jerrica McGriff had 15 points apiece, and Nikol Felder, Kendra McKinney and Keisa Williams netted 10 points each in the road win.

Shanita Gauntt, Camille Wilkins and Keila McKay also scored for Enterprise.

“We played a complete game,” said veteran EOCC coach Charles Cole. “I was proud of the way we came out and took care of business.

“Our players know what they are supposed to do, so now it’s just a matter of them doing it. We have just a few more games on our schedule from now until the Christmas break, and we need to use each game and every practice to get better.

“We begin conference play January 3, and there aren’t any easy games on our schedule from now until the end of the season. We will have to work hard for every win we get.”

Enterprise hosts Darton College Tuesday and will entertain East Central Mississippi College Saturday. Tip-off for both games is scheduled for 5:30 p.m.

Lady Weevils Basketball

11/14/08 - Charles Cole was disappointed and surprised Thursday night in Birmingham when the Enterprise-Ozark Community College Weevil Women lost to Lawson State, 94-80.

“I was disappointed with the loss,” Cole said. “After we beat Andrew College Tuesday I felt good about how we were playing.

“And, Coach (Wesley) Person had a good game plan for us, so I wasn’t thinking about losing. I was surprised and disappointed by how we played in the second half. I couldn’t believe that after all the preseason conditioning we’d done, we got tired.

“But we did. And we missed free throws in the second half and just let Lawson pull away from us.”

Kendra McKinney led three EOCC players in double figures with 27 points. The Daleville freshman had 9 rebounds, 3 steals and 3 blocked shots.

Kiara Henderson, a freshman from Opp, was close behind with 24 points. Henderson had 7 rebounds, 6 assists and 7 steals.

Fortune Smith, a sophomore from Hayneville, had 15 points, 7 rebounds and 3 blocked shots as the Weevils fell to 1-5 on the year.

Enterprise traveled to Cuthbert, Ga., Saturday for a rematch with Andrew College.

Men's Basketball

11/12/08 - The Enterprise-Ozark Community College Boll Weevils broke out on top of the Talladega College junior varsity, 14-3, in the first five minutes of Wednesday night’s game in Ray Lolley Gym on the EOC campus, and then had to fight for dear life to escape with an 88-82 win.

Enterprise led the entire first half until a 3-pointer at the buzzer by the visitors knotted the score at intermission.

From there, it was anyone’s game.

The Boll Weevils trailed by as many as 9 points in the early minutes of the second half, tied it at 57-57, with 12:16 to play and trailed, 74-69, with 5 minutes left on the clock.

EOCC took the lead for good, 78-76, with 2:40 remaining then shot free throws the rest of the way to improve to 3-2 on the year.

Michael Abbott led the Weevils with 23 points and Rodney Kennedy added 22. Eddy Jean-Pierre, with 11 points, was the only other EOCC player in double figures.

“This was a great fight right to the end,” said second-year EOCC coach David James. “It was a good team effort; we finally finished a game properly.”

James said the Weevils overcame several obstacles in earning the hard-fought win.

“We’ve had a couple of guys injured so that hurt us,” James said. “But some of the freshmen came off the bench, played well and helped out where we needed help.

“Our bench stepped up, and we played as a team. We could be 5-0 right now if we’d been playing like this.”

Lady Weevils Basketball

11/11/08 - It took longer than expected, but the Enterprise-Ozark Community College Boll Weevil women’s basketball team won its first game; Enterprise downed visiting Andrew College, 75-57, Tuesday in the Ray Lolley Gym on the EOCC campus.

“If ever a team needed a win, this one did,” said veteran EOCC coach Charles Cole of the now 1-4 Weevils. “We purposefully played difficult teams in jamborees and in other early season games so we’d be prepared for conference games that begin in January.

“Our girls have stayed focused and have worked hard even though things weren’t going their way. Now, this win supports what we’d been telling them all along: that hard work does pay off in the long run.”

The Weevils were led by Kendra McKinney’s 23 points; McKinney is from Daleville.

Jerrica McGriff, of Dothan, was the only other EOCC player in double digits; she had 13 points.

Kiara Henderson, of Opp, added 9 points to the EOCC cause.

The Weevils travel to Birmingham to play Lawson State Thursday, and hit the road again Saturday to Cuthbert, Ga., for a rematch with Andrew College.

Enterprise’s next home game is Tuesday, Nov. 28, against Darton College. Tip-off is set for 5:30 p.m. in the Lolley Gym.

Lady Weevils Basketball

11/10/08 - The perils experienced by the 2008-09 Enterprise-Ozark Community College Weevil Women’s basketball team continued Friday with a 95-38 road loss against Northwest Florida State Community College, formerly known as Okaloosa-Walton.

Kiara Henderson had 10 points and Kendra McKinney had 9 as the Weevils dropped to 0-3 on the year.

“We’re facing good competition and they are causing us to make mistakes,” said veteran coach Charles Cole. “But we’re our own worst enemy at times; we’re making too many unforced errors. We’re working hard in practice but somehow the hard work hasn’t paid off in wins so far.

“But we deliberately scheduled difficult teams in the fall to better prepare ourselves for the conference season that begins in January. Our major problem now is staying focused.

“But nothing has changed my feelings about us having a good basketball team. The scores don’t indicate how we’ve played in some of those games.”

“We played Pensacola Junior College Saturday and lost, 108-65,” Cole said. “The two teams we played over the weekend could beat a lot of 4-year schools. Certainly, we’d like to beat some of those teams but playing these types teams will help us in the long run.”

McKinney had 23 points and Nicole Felder had 12 in the loss.

“We’ve finished playing against some of those heavyweights - both the teams that beat us over the weekend had 6 or more players 6' tall or better - and I feel like we’re fixing to go on a roll now,” Cole concluded.

The 0-4 Weevil Women looking for their elusive first win, host Andrew College at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 11.

Men's Basketball

11/10/08 - Six players scored in double figures for the Enterprise-Ozark Community Boll Weevils in an overtime 105-96 win at Bevill State.

Rodney Kennedy paced the Boll Weevils with 21 points; Lanard Bryant added 18, Wendell Maye had 17, Eddy Jean-Pierre added 16, Tremon Spencer had 12 and Michael Abbott netted 10 points as EOCC improved to 2-2 on the year.

“We had good, balanced scoring and we made plays at the end of the game,” said EOCC coach David James. “This was the first game in which we reached our goal in turnovers; we focused on taking care of the basketball and that allowed us to take more shots.

“Defensively, we shut down their guards in the second half after they’d hurt us in the first half. It was a good win against a team that beat us by 25 points last season.”
The Weevils host Talladega at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday; and will entertain Bevill State Friday at 7:30 p.m.

Men's Basketball

11/04/08 - Despite having five players score in double digits Tuesday night, the Enterprise-Ozark Community College Boll Weevils lost their home-opener, 96-89, to Mississippi Elite Christian Academy.

On a night when the EOCC basket seemed to have a lid on it much of the time, Michael Abbott managed to sneak in 17 points to lead the Weevils.

Eddy Jean-Pierre had 15 points, Lanard Bryant added 14, Rodney Kennedy had 13 and Wendell Maye chipped in 10 as the Weevils fell to 1-2 with the loss to the team from Jackson, Miss.

The Weevils return to the court Friday, Nov. 7, at Bevill State Community College.

The next home game is Tuesday, Nov. 11 against Talladega College’s jayvee squad.

Tip-off is slated for 7:30 p.m.

Men's Basketball

11/03/08 - The Enterprise-Ozark Community College men’s basketball team split its first two games of the 2008-09 regular season in Tallahassee, Fla. over the weekend.
The Boll Weevils fell to the College of Coastal Georgia, 91-89, Halloween night despite having five players score in double digits.

Lanard Bryant, of Ft. Lauderdale, and Rodney Kennedy, of Dothan, paced the Weevils with 17 points apiece. Eddy Jean-Pierre, also of Ft. Lauderdale, added 13 points; Wendell Maye, of Daphne, added 12, and Roderick Moss, of Milledgeville, Ga., chipped in 10 points for the victors.

Jean-Pierre had 8 rebounds and Maye had 4 assists for Enterprise in the disappointing loss to the Mariners.

“We played a good game Friday,” second-year EOCC coach David James said of the official season-opener for the Weevils. “But we just didn’t win.

“We had the ball out on the sideline and were tied late in the game. We threw it in and one of their guys got it, went down and scored. We got the ball, and got off a shot with 3 seconds to play, and their player got all in the net, but wasn’t charged with goal-tending.

“The officials told us Saturday they’d made a mistake.”

Saturday’s game was altogether different than Friday’s.

The Weevils dealt the Gordon College Highlanders a dish of disappointment Saturday in a 73-63 game. The Weevils led, 32-21, at halftime and led by 16 at one point as they improved to 1-1 on the season.

EOCC had played in a couple of jamborees in the pre-season; results from those outings did not count on the record.

Michael Abbott, of Dothan, led the Weevils with 27 points and Moss added 14 in Saturday’s win.

Abbott also had 11 rebounds to lead EOCC in that department.

“We played pretty good in the second game,” James said of the first win of the season.

Enterprise hosts the Mississippi Elite Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. There is no women’s game.

Lady Weevils Basketball

11/03/08 - The 2008-09 basketball season is underway for the Enterprise-Ozark Community women’s basketball team but the beginning wasn’t what EOCC coach Charles Cole hoped it would be.

“We had a good pre-season; our players worked hard to get ready and to get into the best possible physical shape,” Cole said. “But we couldn’t turn that into wins in the first games that counted on our record.”

The Weevils, after having played in a couple of jamborees in October, dropped a pair of games in the Darton College Classic played in Albany, Ga. over the weekend.

The first loss was painful as host Darton dealt the Weevil Women a 119-67 setback.

“This isn’t what we had in mind at all,” Cole said. “The girls played hard but were no match for Darton.”

Kendra McKinney, of Daleville, had 15 points, Lakeisha Noethtich, of Anderson, Ind., had 14, and Fortune Smith, of Hayneville, added 10 in the loss.

In the second game, Faulkner State squeaked by the Weevils in an 83-80 game that saw three EOCC players score in double figures.

McKinney had 38 points, Smith had 14 and Nicole Felder, of Fort Rucker, had 10.
“We played better in the second game but not good enough to get a win,” Cole said. “With hard work the wins will come.”

The Weevils travel to Northwest Florida State Friday and Saturday for two games. Enterprise plays Northwest Florida Community College Friday at 7 p.m. and Pensacola Junior College Saturday at 2 p.m.

“We have a lot to work on and we need to get some players who’ve been injured back to full speed,” Cole concluded. “We have a good number of games the next few weeks; we’ll use them to get ready for conference play in January.”

EOCC Basketball

10/28/08 - It’s time to play basketball at Enterprise-Ozark Community College.

“We’ve played several pre-season games against top-notch opponents in jamborees in Andalusia and Albany, Ga., said EOCC coach Charles Cole, who’s returning to his position as head coach of the EOCC Weevil Women after missing last season due to some now-corrected health concerns. “We’re really excited about the season.

“We’re playing in a tournament in Albany, Ga., Friday and Saturday and we start counting games on our record Saturday.”

Cole said the 2008-09 Weevil Women should have an edge over opponents, especially early in the season.

“Our players have gone through a rigorous, pre-season conditioning program and should be in better physical condition than any team I’ve seen in many years,” he explained. “They’re excited about the season and I’ve sensed a oneness about them that has developed since they arrived on campus in August.”

This year’s roster is youthful.

“We have only four sophomores,” Cole said. “So, we’re going to have to grow up quickly to be ready for conference play starting in January. But our enthusiasm is contagious and that can sometimes overcome lack of experience in some areas of the game. And by January, these freshmen players will have played as many games as teams once played in an entire season.”

Nikol Felder, of Fort Rucker, Megan Harris, of Enterprise, Fortune Smith, of Hayneville, and Darshae White of Troy are this year’s sophomores.

“Of course we’re depending on these players for their playing abilities and their leadership,” Cole said. “And they’ve shown they can be depended on for both counts.”

Opp’s Kiara Henderson, Geneva’s Jasmine Wiggins, Lakeisha Noethtich, of Anderson, Ind., Dothan’s Jerrica McGriff, Tallassee’s Shanita Gauntt, Daleville’s Kendra McKinney, Montgomery’s Camille Watkins, and McKenzie’s Caleena Davison are the team’s freshmen on scholarship.

Ozark’s Martika Mcleod, Hartford’s Kesia Williams and Marianna’s Keela McKay are walk-ons.

“Every player contributes to our team, whether it’s in practice or in games or both,” Cole concluded. “I think our fans are in for a treat this season. If they’re like me, they’ll enjoy watching these young ladies play.”

The Weevil Women play their first home game Tuesday, Nov. 11, against Andrew College. Game time is 5:30 p.m. The EOCC men will host the Talladega JV squad at approximately 7:30 p.m.

The Enterprise men’s team plays Coastal Georgia and Gordon College in Tallahassee, Fla., this weekend, and will open at home Tuesday, Nov. 4, against the Mississippi Elite.

Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.

Lady Weevils Basketball

9/25/08 - “We’re thinking about bringing some ‘Midnight Madness’ to the Enterprise-Ozark Community College gym at midnight Tuesday,” smiled veteran EOCC women’s basketball coach Charles Cole. “Basketball practice officially begins Oct. 1.”

The start of practice won’t catch the Lady Boll Weevils by surprise.

“Our players have been in our conditioning program since they arrived on campus in August,” Cole explained. “Our freshmen have been adjusting to college basketball but even more importantly, they’ve been making adjustments in the classroom.

“Our players are scholar/athletes; academics come first with us. If they don’t do what’s expected of them in class, then they won’t be available to play basketball. Grades come first.

“We’ve had some players with nagging injuries, but they’re getting better and we’re looking to have them all ready to go when our season begins Saturday, Oct. 18, in Andalusia at L.B. Wallace.”

Cole said the team will have to be in peak condition early this season.

“We have a really competitive schedule early in the season,” Cole explained of the pre-conference slate that includes approximately 15 games, depending on how far the Weevils advance in a couple of tournaments before the Christmas break in December.

“We’ve got to get the players ready for the conference season in January,” he explained. “We haven’t had much to cheer about the past couple of seasons, but we’ve added NBA veteran Wesley Person to our program as assistant coach, and he’s brought a new look and some real excitement to what we’re doing.

“I’m really excited about this team and this season. I want to start with ‘Midnight Madness’ and keep the madness going all season.”

Cole said EOCC fans should expect to see top-notch basketball this season.

“Our gym floor is being refinished today and tomorrow, so we’ll be starting fresh when practice begins Wednesday,” Cole concluded Thursday afternoon. “We’re ready to let the madness begin!”

Members of the 2008-09 team are: Caleena Davison, Nikol Felder, Shaunita Gauntt, Kiara Henderson, Jerrica McGriff, Keela McKay, Kendra McKinney, Martika McLeod, Lakieisha Noethtich, Fortune Smith, Camille Watkins, Darshae White, Jasmine Wiggins, and Keisa Williams.

Team managers are Mary Harris, Natoyia Person and Dorothy Jackson.

Lady Weevils Softball

9/25/08 - Cooler weather has livened the 2008-09 Enterprise-Ozark Community College softball team’s practices, giving Coach King Jones expanding the confidence the Lady Weevils will again qualify for the post-season in the spring.

“The girls have been working extremely hard to refine and learn new skills,” Jones said. “We have played three games and won 7-0, 5-0 and lost 2-1.

“The girls are going to be very exciting to watch this year, when they have developed their skills in the new offensive game we are incorporating. We have some very good athletes and I think they are going to do very well in the spring season.

“At this point, we are using a split team to assure that everyone gets equal playing time and has an opportunity to develop their skills in live game situations.”

The team practices weekday afternoons at the EOCC softball field.

Members of the 2008-09 squad are: Mallory A. Allen, Megan Bass, Amanda Danielle Caton, Kaylee Clark, Adriane Brooke Ellison, Kayla Lynn Garlock, Kristi Marie Garlock, Katie Greathouse, Hannah Diane Haynes, Jordan Herrin, Morgan Elizabeth Howard, Marquita Johnson, Michelle Johnson, Savannah Brooke Kirkland, Kaleigh Sanders, Stevie Speigner, Shasta Brianne Tew, Chelsea Trammell, and Jessica D. Williams.

Team managers will be Logan Bunger, Aaron Curenton and Ryan Johns.