By Kallie Sohm
More than 40 new athletes enrolled at Trevecca as part of a junior varsity athletic team.
This year is the first year the athletic department has fielded multiple junior varsity teams.
Men’s basketball junior varsity is in its second year with three returning players. This academic year will be women’s basketball and men’s soccer’s first year of having secondary teams in their programs.
“I think it’s already serving its purpose,” said Danny Leavy head men’s soccer coach.
Last spring, Dan Boone, Trevecca president, said the university wanted to add 100 additional athletes within the next four years. The addition of junior varsity teams has been the first step toward that goal.
Chad Hibdon, head women’s basketball coach, said he and Goodson were looking for “missional fits” when recruiting for the women’s junior varsity team.
“You really have to look for that person who just simply loves competing at the sport and it really doesn’t matter to them whether they are playing varsity or JV; they just want, during college, to continue to play ball,” said Boone.“… it [junior varsity] gives us some opportunities to say yes to more of those kinds of students.”
The men’s soccer program uses and refers to their junior varsity team as a reserve team. This system is similar to a professional club system where players are brought up and down between the two teams based on performance or to recover from injury.
All three of the new teams have an assistant coach from their program who acts as a head junior varsity coach. Men’s basketball junior varsity is coached by Reece Chamberlain, men’s soccer reserves is coached by Nicolas Reinhard and women’s basketball junior varsity by Trevor Goodson
“I was at Lindsey Wilson College for the last three years as the assistant varsity coach and head JV coach there,” said Goodson. “I’m hoping to be able to bring what I learned there in terms of the JV program over to here.”
Hibdon said their junior varsity team has 10 games scheduled. He said they will be playing those games against NAIA and junior varsity teams.
Chamberlain said men’s basketball junior varsity has 11 games on its schedule and he is looking for at least one more. He said the junior varsity team played three games last year.
“Last year was a little different because a lot of the JV guys actually dressed out for a few varsity games,” said Chamberlain.
The men’s soccer reserve team has eight games total on their schedule. The team lost its first two games to Covenant College and Cumberland University.
Both junior varsity basketball teams will begin full practice Oct. 15 along with their varsity teams.
