Athletics News

Women’s Soccer Wins Back-to-Back Titles Women’s soccer completed an incredible 2021 calendar season. Forced to play the fall 2020 season in the spring of 2021, followed by its normally scheduled slate of matches the following fall, the Golden Eagles won back-to-back Sooner Athletic regular season and tournament titles, compiling a 32-2-1 (.929) record and consecutive appearances in the NAIA National Championships. 01

Pearson Continues Run of Records Siloam Springs native and dual-sport student-athlete Allika Pearson continues her romp through the Golden Eagle record books with another pair of All-America finishes in the 2021-22 season. After earning a second-straight All-America finish at the NAIA National Cross Country Championships, Allika then earned her first career All-America honors at the NAIA National Indoor Track and Field Championships with a fourth-place finish in the 5,000-meter race. She has the chance to earn the “triple crown” later this spring, when she competes in the 10,000-meter race at the NAIA National Outdoor Track and Field Championships. 02

Tennis Teams Boost Win Record Mike Campbell ‘96, head men’s and women’s tennis coach, has revived the programs after a difficult 2020-21 season. The women, who finished winless last season, own a 9-7 overall record, while the men have built an 11-6 mark as the programs prepare for the NAIA Unaffiliated Group Regional Tournament. The teams’ records this season are the best the tennis programs have produced in over two decades. 03

Mendez Named NAIA AllAmerica Second Team Junior defender Aubrey Mendez, the anchor of the Golden Eagle soccer team back line that conceded just eight goals in 20 matches (0.40 goals against average), was honored with the program’s first-ever NAIA All-America second team selection. The Chino, California, native not only earned an All-America nod for the second time in as many seasons, she is the first defender in JBU women’s soccer history to finish among the top three All-America teams in program history. 04

Stephens Breaks Program Scoring Record Junior forward Tarrah Stephens broke a 38-year-old women’s basketball scoring record when she shot a new record of 45 points in the Golden Eagles’ overtime win at Oklahoma Panhandle State University in February. The native of Wyandotte, Oklahoma, posted an incredible stat line, shooting 18-of-27 from the field – hitting two-thirds of her shots attempted – and converting 9-of-10 free-throw opportunities to accompany 11 rebounds. 05

Volleyball Players Earn Honors After a postseason run that nearly produced the volleyball program’s first-ever appearance in the NAIA National Championships, a pair of Golden Eagles earned superlative honors from the Sooner Athletic Conference, including Taylor Goleman’s selection for the league’s Freshman of the Year and junior Jillian Blackman as the conference’s Defensive Player of the Year. Head Coach Ken Carver has now produced two of the SAC’s four most recent top freshmen,

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and Blackman’s selection is the Golden Eagles’ first featured back-row player in the league since 2005. 06

1,000 Point Club Gains Three Three Golden Eagles joined the 1,000-point club during the 2021-22 season. Seniors Luke Harper and Rokas Grabliauskas became the 31st and 32nd newcomers to the men’s club, respectively, while Tarrah Stephens became the 19th Golden Eagle to join the women’s 1,000 club. 07

Women’s Soccer Scores Awards The Sooner Athletic Conference’s women’s soccer postseason superlatives were nearly swept by the Golden Eagles. Head Coach Kathleen Paulsen was tabbed Coach of the Year for the third time in her career, senior Caitlyn Logan earned Goalkeeper of the Year for the fourth time, Pam Seiler was named Freshman of the Year and junior Aubrey Mendez was voted as Defensive Player of the Year – headlining eight Golden Eagle selections to the 2021 All-Sooner Athletic teams.

OCTOBER 7-8

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Long Journey to JBU

BY CARLSON WAKEFIELD ’20

After attending a conference in Indiana in 2019, husband and wife Justus Selwyn, Ph.D., and Hepsiba Vivenkanandan, Ph.D., decided to start applying for jobs at colleges in the United States, thousands of miles from their home in Madurai, India.

Selwyn had a job lined up and was ready to move his family to the U.S. when the coronavirus pandemic caused universities across the U.S. to send students home and move to remote learning. Ultimately, the job fell through, leaving Selwyn and his family with nothing but uncertainty.

“We were waiting for the call in March 2020, and that’s when everything shut down,” Selwyn said. “No flights, no business, nothing, so we waited.”

When the pandemic continued to escalate in June 2020, Selwyn’s family took a break from looking for jobs and waited for God’s guidance. Selwyn and Vivenkanandan almost decided to stay in India where they had family and community.

“We did not know whether it was really God’s plan to take us to the U.S.,” Vivenkanandan said. “Our families were there [India], we had a great community in our church, so we thought maybe that was his plan.”

But soon, Selwyn and Vivenkanandan felt God’s prompting to start applying for jobs in the U.S.

“God gave us the promise from Deuteronomy 11:11-12,” Vivenkanandan said. “We didn’t know for sure that America was that place, but we believed the word of God and believed that God was insisting on us to apply again.”

In November 2020, Selwyn found JBU through a Google search and sent in his application materials for the professor of computer science position. Within a week, Ted Song, Ph.D., department chair of engineering, computer science and cybersecurity, reached out for a meeting.

After a week of interviewing with the engineering department, including Song and JBU President Chip Pollard, Selwyn and Vivenkanandan knew that JBU was where God wanted them to be. One thing that stood out to the couple was the prayer before and after each interview.

“That was completely new to us, and we were so excited,” Vivenkanandan said. “In India, we don’t do prayers apart from the church, so that confirmed that we were in the right place.”

Song, who had been looking for the right person to fill the computer science faculty position for a while, was thrilled when Selwyn applied. It was even more fitting that Vivenkanandan was also in the same field and could join JBU as an adjunct instructor in the computer science program.

Unfortunately, COVID-19 travel restrictions made getting the family to Arkansas quite difficult. As new COVID-19 variants emerged and cases rose and fell, the visa interview and final approval process was on hold.

While waiting, Selwyn and Vivenkanandan started teaching classes in the fall of 2021 via Zoom, even with the 11-hour time difference, and were in daily communication with Song and Pollard. “They supported us throughout the whole process,” Vivenkanandan said. “We were so encouraged during those down times.” It was a year before Selwyn, Vivenkanandan and their son, Handel, a high school senior, stepped foot in Arkansas. “Some days were very difficult for all of us, especially Justus and Hepsiba, but we never lost the hope that God had given us,” Song said. “After months of waiting and prayers, we celebrated God’s faithfulness when they finally arrived at the airport.”

When Selwyn, Vivenkanandan and their son landed at Northwest Arkansas National Airport on Dec. 12, they felt they had finally made it to the “land of hills and valleys” that God had promised them in Deuteronomy.

“God had put us on hold for something else to teach us a lesson,” Selwyn said. “But he remained in constant communication with us, and Dr. Song and Dr. Pollard were very helpful as well, and that’s why we were able to stand.”