Watch the Flames Central crew talk about Zach Cleveland against MTSU and WBB continuing their CUSA win streak, spring ball transfers, tennis player Bruna Sampaio on the call with LU Hockey, Kieran Vincent on his pro tour and Freshman Asia Boone on her 7TH player of the week and more!
0:00 Intro & Recap
0:56 MBB WIN and the âZach Cleveland Showâ vs. MTSU
2:13 New football transfers & spring ball practice
4:26 WBB 7-0 in CUSA play
4:59 Asia Boone with her 7th CUSA POFTW
7:00 Bruna Sampaio on the call with LU Hockey
13:47 Kieran Vincentâs PRO golf tour
15:30 BREAK
18:53 CUSA Baseball preseason
20:20 Warm, Hot, En Fuego
23:27 BREAK
26:31 Liberty Flames Podcast
On this week’s show, Liberty Football opens up spring practice and add some new pieces to the roster. Plus, see how one women’s tennis player is pursuing her passion of hockey. And former Flames golfer Kieran Vincent is making a name for himself on a liv tour. We’ll hear from him. It’s all straight ahead.
This is Flames Central. You’ve come to expect one thing when you tune into Flame Central, you’ve come to expect a great show. That’s right. Great stories about liberty, athletes. And guess what we deliver again today. Welcome on into the show, as always. She’s Emily Austen. I’m Matt Warner.
We have some new faces to introduce to you on football as the flames are getting ready to hit the gridiron for spring ball. But first, we begin with Liberty hoops. Yeah, the flames coming off their first conference. USA road win of the season returned home on Thursday to square off with Middle Tennessee
Liberty in the middle of the pack in CUSA looking to get hot and make a move. But the flames were going to have to do it shorthanded. Junior Joseph Venzant was out with a shoulder injury, putting Brodie Peebles in the starting lineup for the first time in 769 days,
And he would make up for lost time. Peebles would make seven of 12 shots from the field on his way to a team high 21 points. He’s like, I could get used to this whole starting thing. Meanwhile, the flames would jump out to a double digit lead in the first half.
Elias King trying to keep the Blue Raiders in it. He’d score 19 on the night, but Liberty would lead by nine at the break. Second half. And it turned into the Zach Cleveland show. The kid would do it all. Liberty made his first seven shots of the half
With Cleveland making five of them. He was also a force on the defensive end as he stuffed the stat sheet to the tune of 20 points, five rebounds, five assists and four blocks. That hot shooting would allow the flames to pull away for a dominant win. 88-53.
The win gives the flames a four and five record in C-USA play. All right. Switching gears to football and you’re like football in February. Yes. In February, Jamey Chadwell and the Flames don’t have to wait for spring to start spring ball. They’re doing it right now.
Fresh off a 13 and one season, Liberty is right back at it as they begin spring ball this weekend. Not nearly as many question marks this spring compared to a season ago, but the target that will be on this team’s back will be twice as big. The flames are set to practice
For three weeks, all leading up to this year’s spring game at Williams Stadium on March 2nd. More information on that as we get closer. Staying with football, Wednesday was the second National Signing Day. It was also when the flames officially announced their additions from the transfer portal.
The first thing to jump out to you from this list, three linebackers. Jahmar Brown comes in from Coastal Carolina, where he played previously for Jamey Chadwell and Taylor Jackson comes from East Carolina, where he racked up 51 tackles a season ago. Another notable name, quarterback Ryan Burger.
He won the starting job at App State last year before suffering an injury. So he’ll provide great depth behind Kaden Salter. And finally, a couple of intriguing receivers, Donte Lee Jr He comes in from Division two Shaw University chose the flames over multiple power five offers
And Tyson Mobley, who snagged 40 catches two seasons ago under Chadwell at coastal finding players in the portal. It can be a challenge, but Chadwell likes what the flames have accomplished this year. It’s still hard. It’s speed dating. You know what you’re used to? It’s. It’s know, it’s just. It’s hard
Just trying to get people know in a short amount of time. Right. And so that’s the hardest challenge, I think, from a portal standpoint, like the high school guys, you got a lot of chance to develop relationships with with the with the with the portal transfer guys. It’s a short amount of window,
You know, and you’re trying to get to know them. They’re trying to get to know us And you think you have an understanding you really don’t until they’re here. You can talk with coaches and all that. And so I do think we hit on some, we hope good players.
But I do really think from a transfer standpoint, we hit on some guys that are good people as well and and that you know, fit what we’re trying to do here. For the record, Coach Chadwell, was not pointing at me when he was talking about speed dating.
But hey, it’s never too early to get excited about football season, am I right? But for now, let’s get back to the hardwood. The lady flames are smoking hot right now. Winners of four straight Liberty hits the road for its most difficult conference contest to date. LU will face a middle Tennessee team
That’s an undefeated 7-0 in CUSA play. It was a solid start for the Lady Flames leading 22-17 early in the second quarter. Another solid effort coming from your CUSA player of the week Bella Smuda but the lady Raiders were unstoppable on this one final score 81 to 55.
One, two, three, four, five, six seven. Lady Flame Asia. Boone collected her seventh freshman of the week honor which ties for the most. The award has been given out to a freshman in CUSA history. Boone is also just one honor away from tying the program record, which Keyenne Green holds with eight.
So we thought it would be a perfect time to learn more about Boone and her game. Asia Boone with a smile on her face. Great defense by Boone. Left open, gathers watches and hits. My name is Asia Boone. I am a shooting guard slash point guard on the Liberty Women’s basketball team.
During games, I’m very locked in. Like I’m very like nothing will faze me. I’m in the zone. And here comes the strength from the freshman Asia boone I feel like I always have good energy. Like I’m always, like, loud and like. Like, let’s go, girls. Or like, if one of my teammates is
Struggling and I was like, okay, like, it’s okay. Like, let’s pick it up in this next play. Like, I’m always encouraging. So I feel like that’s what I bring to the table. How Asia went all the way to the rim. They cannot lack for confidence, and that’s what you want to see
From your freshman, the big three to start off. My pops has always told me to have a short term memory in basketball. I’m not perfect. Neither is my teammates neither is my coaches, everybody makes mistakes. So when I make a mistake, I laugh it off. I was just like, It’s okay.
Like next play. Like, nobody’s going to remember all the mistakes that I made in the game after the game. Sprinting. Keeps it with LU. Boone misses a jumper with an offensive rebound. Offensive rebounds continue to pile up for LU and it results in more second chance points. Asia Boone with a triple.
Our culture this year is called Get to. So you had a long practice, two and a half hour practice and we have to go to weights we’re all like like we don’t want to go like, but we’re like, we get to go. We’re just like it,
Like get to we get to do all of these things. We’re blessed to do all these things. 1,2,3, to God be the Glory. Asia Boone might just be the face of the Liberty Women’s program here in the very near future. All right. Well, when you’re a division one college athlete,
Your sport is basically a full time job. And typically it’s also your passion. And while that’s all true for women’s tennis player Bruna Sampaio, she’s also very passionate about another sport as well, one that’s far from popular in her home country of Brazil and one that she covers from the broadcast booth.
Sheâ s all alone she can make it she takes the shot and she’s scores That âs another goal for the Flames is a lot of pressure here for this Liberty team. and they score with the Buckeyes able to find the first goal of 2024 for the lady flames Bruna Sampaio
It’s not your typical two sport athlete. The young Brazilian would follow in her dad’s footsteps and pick up a ball and racket at an early age to begin her journey in the game of tennis. But a trip to the states would reveal a passion for a new sport
That Bruna had never seen before. I came in December of 2017 with my dad, and my dad told me, like, I’m going to introduce you to American sports. I had no idea what football was I had no idea what hockey was, basketball. So we watched Jacksonville Jaguars game
Against the Indianapolis Colts which was really good. Then we watch Orlando Magic against Golden State Warriors, also fun and lastly, we watched the Tampa Bay Lightning against Colorado Avalanche. I never fell in love so quickly in my life before it, just watching the puck drop.
There were two goals in the first 2 minutes of the game, just the atmosphere inside. I absolutely fell in love with hockey right there. And then and I just started inserting myself in the game of hockey. The new hockey fan would move over 4000 miles to the mountains of central Virginia
And begin her collegiate tennis career at Liberty University. When an opportunity arose off the court that would allow her to pursue her newfound love of hockey in a unique way. The first week of my sophomore year, Bennett came into my class and he explained about Liberty broadcast experience, which is an opportunity
For students to work within the broadcast of sports. And he said that every student had to start at lower level hockey. And I just found that awesome because it’s literally the sport that I understand the most of and that I love the most.
He passed on a sign up sheet and I was like, I’m there. But the eager athlete would first have to get the blessing from her tennis coach, Jeff Marin. I spoke to Bruna about her interest in broadcasting and sports in general, and I thought it was a perfect
Situation for her. She had this. This gave her the opportunity to use her, her gifts, her strengths, and the the love that she had for sports and for statistics and wanting to be involved, especially in hockey. I think it was just an incredible fit. And so I was all in for that.
I thought it was an incredible idea that she had and something she wanted to do, and I endorsed it. I said, Go for it. You know, as long as you have your own practice and you’re giving 100% and you’re you’re here in our matches, go for it.
Let’s see what you can do with coach on board. Sampaio would attack this new adventure like she does the net. Whenever it’s go time. There is no time to practice, you know, so you need to practice and prep beforehand. The same is with tennis, right? We practice six times a week
For an entire semester before our season even starts. Because if you don’t do anything and it’s a game day, you’re not going to be ready for it. You’re not going to be ready for the opportunity. And I think the same thing goes. It’s calling a hockey game. You know,
You can’t just expect to get into it and know instantly what to say if you don’t prepare, if you don’t know the things that you need to know before you go into a game, like you’re going to blink and you’re just going to not be able to say anything
Another shot, and another great save rolling down on the ice truly has been the story of this game so far While the young broadcaster has never played a shift in a hockey game, she has been able to bring her unique perspective as an athlete to the booth. I think being an athlete helps
Me understand the sacrifice that goes into your craft. For me, at least with tennis, I had to sacrifice a lot growing up in order to be in the position that I am today. You do all of that for the love of the sport
And for trying to put yourself in the best position to win. And I think whenever I’m doing hockey games and I understand the amount of work that they put into it and I understand how badly they want it who has Fussy, and she scores Fussy with the second goal of the game
And she’s able to take that one in between the bags and the glove from the left hand, the flames going up 2-0 late in the third period, even though her dad isn’t here in the stands to watch his daughter call games or playing the tennis match,
Bruna knows that he’s tuning in from a hemisphere away. My dad is like my biggest supporter always. So even though if I say something wrong in a game, he’ll always be like, Hey, I’m so proud of you and I’m so amazing, like what you’re doing.
And it’s just so special to have him watch it. What a great story by our Donald Scott. You know something about Bruna. She’s so passionate and dedicated to this career field. Not only is she in the broadcast booth, but I see her on the sidelines at football games. rolling cable
She’s doing graphics at basketball games, so she is all in. Yeah. And her love of hockey is so wild. Like she consumes it. She’ll tell me sheâ ll watch entire games from 30 years ago on YouTube. She is so passionate about the game of hockey
And I have no doubt she can go as far as she wants to in the broadcasting field, like with the game of hockey because of that passion word on the street. She’s a bigger hockey fan than that Canadian Rett McGibbon But I’ll have to see. All right. We take you from the court
To the links for our next update, which is on former Liberty golfer Kieran Vincent It’s been so exciting to follow along Kieran’s journey since his LU playing days. It seems like he’s in a new country every other day. So let’s get you all caught up on his travels.
Or should I say his insane success the last year and a half. As you may remember, the South African had an incredible career here at Liberty from 2016 to 2022. In fact, he won the Big South Conference Rookie of the Year back in 2017. He went on to go turn pro in 2022,
Playing on the PGA Tour, Canada and Asian Tour, which is when he won his first pro tournament at the international series Vietnam in April of 23. Then he earned his liv golf tour spot in a playoff at the Liv Promotions event in December 2023. Next thing you know, he joined John Ron’s Legion
13 team, which was just formed last Monday. Then they teed off at Live Golf’s Mayakoba in Mexico just four days later. Here’s the former flame arriving at the course. Matt Warner. Take note of the backpack, repping the flames. Love it. Kieran finished the event, tied for 38,
His best round coming on Sunday at two under. But as a team, Legion 13 won the event. Here’s Kieran After the victory. I’m not really a leaderboard follower so I try to avoid it as best as I can, but my peripheral got the better of me today
And so I kept peaking at it every now and again. Like, I shouldn’t be doing that. But yeah, obviously it was nice to see a little bit of pink on top and yeah, kind of sort of, couple of times throughout the round. And I was like,
Well I know my score is, you know, average right now, so the guys must be really playing good. And then I kept looking at every now and again and kept going. So it was awesome. All right, we step aside for a moment, but when we come back, we get
You ready for baseball season and let you know how the flames are expected to fare in Conference USA. Plus, Rett joins us for warm hot en fuego. That’s all when Flames Central returns. Welcome back to Flames Central. Despite the cold conditions here in Lynchburg, Liberty Baseball will hit the field to host
Quinnipiac in its first series of the season next weekend. The flames had a somewhat disappointing finish to last year, dropping three straight, including a loss in the ASUN semifinal. However, LU will now shift its focus to Conference USA, where the flames are already picking up some praise. Infielders Cam Foster and Aiden
Sweat as well as pitcher Garrett Horne, were all named to the CUSA preseason All-conference team. Foster started all 58 games for LU last season, hitting 272 with 44 RBI and 40 runs scored. Not to mention a career high and team leading 12 home run sweat is a transfer coming from three seasons
At North Florida, where he was a two time ASUN All-conference second baseman. I’ll tell you, Matt Warner, this guy is going to be fun to watch. It seems like nothing really gets by him at second. Finally, Horn makes the list after posting 15 starts with
A five and five record in 2023, the lefty struck out 87 and held opponents to a 214 batting average, and hopefully that talent will help the flames meet the expectations of this preseason poll or hey, maybe even exceed them. Who knows? This is how the
CUSA head coaches think it will all shake out. Dallas Baptist is projected to take the conference crown. The Patriots won the CUSA regular season last year. The rankings are followed by Liberty, La Tech and Sam Houston. All right. Rett McGibonâ s here You know what that means.
Time for warm, Hot En Fuego top play player moment. Over the past week, Liberty Athletics. Do we have any kind of theme we’re working with this week? Not really a theme, but we do have a newcomer to the list and she is from a place in the Caribbean
That I don’t know why you’d leave. Like, truthfully, it’s Trinidad and Tobago. I was looking at the. No, I haven’t. But, you know, looking at the pictures and like the just the crystal clear water. Yeah, the beach. I’d be like, can I join the national team? A story there.
I think that would be a great idea. I mean, I bet you’d be on that one as well. But Reece Webster, this youngster, it’s come on to this flames team, first year as a flame. She has been terrific, unbeaten in seven individual races to start off her liberty career.
That’s between the 60 meter and the 200 meter. So she has just been flying high. She’s got a 7.32 in the 60. That’s number one in Conference USA and 38th in the NCAA Wow. So coming into the Derrius Dixon this weekend, she’s got some stiff competition going on.
I think it’s going to be a really good challenge for her. But she’s gotten better. Each individual race she’s run. So I think she’s going to get it. All right. From warm we go to Hot. Who’s your pick? Zach Cleveland. How good is he? Yeah, he has been terrific.
That’s that was I was going to almost ask you like tell us about this guy and most important player on Liberty basketball I believe I went back to last year his average of points you any guesses? Was it like three and a half? Yeah. 3.4. Yeah.
You look at this season well over that in the teens he’s the probably conference USA player of the week you look at average 20 and a half points seven assists five and a half rebounds versus the Aggies 23 points versus UTEP 18 points. He is just so versatile like you said,
He can get down in the post, he can pass it out, he can drive, he can slash. I know the three pointer, it really isn’t his game, but last year we’re talking about him. It’s like this guy can dunk. Yeah, that felt like that was the main thing.
Watch out when he gets some territory, some room because he can throw it down. Now watch out in every aspect of the offensive game because he can do so much with it. Yeah, he’s been so good and a lot of times he brings the ball up. They use him as like a forward.
So he has been really dynamic for them this season, right? Finally En fuego Who you got this week? it’s Bella Smuda What a season for Bella We keep talking about it, but she keeps getting better and better and better. She really does. You know,
You spent so many years behind Maya McMillen, and again, I’ve said this in the past, like good for her. Sticking with the Liberty program and wanting to stay here at LU. And then she has just reaped the benefits this season, 27 points versus UTEP.
She is well, was the Conference USA player of the week seven rebounds. She’s number one in CUSA when it comes to double doubles. She’s just pulling it down. So you look at some games and I’m like, I bet you she probably had like ten or 11 rebounds.
She has like 18. my goodness sakes. This is funny thing against UTEP only second time this season that she did not have an offensive rebound. And then I went to the field goal percentage. She shot it at 83%. So when you’re not missing it, I guess, yeah,
You don’t need to pull down any offensive balls, right? Liberty was just clicking and man, I really hope she sticks around for one more season with this young, talented team they have because I think they can really do some serious damage in the years ahead.
I mean, she’s going to be first team all conference for sure, the season that she’s had. Great job. As always, we appreciate it. Don’t go anywhere. More flames central coming up right after this. Hey there. Welcome back to the show. You know, for some people, a quick half hour of us
Here on Flames Central just isn’t enough. You know, there’s more to talk about when it comes to Liberty athletics. There absolutely is. I get it. You want to dive deeper. You want to hear more from coaches, athletes and, of course, get educated opinion from those who are closest to the programs.
You know, I have some news for you. It’s called the Flames Central Podcast People, and it’s powered by Alcova mortgage. It’s everything you need and more in a Liberty Flames Focused podcast. We’re really serious about sports. Yes, but the rest of the time We’re not really serious at all.
Joe Jauch Matt Warner myself drop a new episode each and every Monday. Check it out. Wherever you listen to your podcast or watch it on the Liberty Flames YouTube channel. Great guests coming this week so be sure to tune in. Hey, for any stories you might have missed. LibertyFlamesCentral.com,
Be sure to check it out for Emily Iâ m Matt. We’ll see you right back here next week.
