East Mississippi Community College standouts Tye Metcalf, Ja’Mia Hollings and Jakorie Smith have earned All-Region 23 basketball team honors for their efforts during the 2019-20 season. The respective 10-member, all-region teams were announced Wednesday following a vote of the head men’s and women’s junior college basketball coaches in the states of Mississippi and Louisiana.
Metcalf and Hollings helped lead coach Sharon Thompson’s 24-3 EMCC Lions to the school’s first MACJC women’s basketball championship since the 1983-84 season, while Smith ranked as Coach Billy Begley’s leading scorer and rebounder on the Lions’ 16-9 team this past season. All three players also previously garnered 2019-20 All-MACJC/North Division First Team accolades.
Metcalf, a two-time, all-conference backcourt performer for the Lions, was the team’s second-leading scorer at 13.2 points per game and top playmaker with 4.0 assists an outing. In addition to also averaging 3.0 rebounds and 2.0 steals per contest for the season, she connected on 42.3 percent of her overall field goal attempts, 32.2 percent of her three-point tries and 70.4 percent from the charity stripe.
A Southaven native, Metcalf capped her two-year EMCC career by collecting MACJC Player of the Week honors after averaging a team-best 18.7 points along with 6.3 rebounds and 5.0 assists during the Lions’ three-game MACJC tournament championship run. She was also selected to this year’s NJCAA Region 23 All-Tournament Team.
For her EMCC career as a two-year starter for the Lady Lions, Metcalf totaled 679 points (13.6 ppg), 179 assists (3.6 apg), 156 rebounds (3.1 rpg) and 96 steals (1.9 spg).
Hollings, a freshman forward, averaged a double-double for the 2019-20 season as EMCC’s leading scorer (14.0 ppg) and top rebounder (10.2 rpg). The West Point product recorded 15 double-double outings on the year with season-high efforts of 27 points coming against Coahoma CC and 17 rebounds during the Lady Lions’ thrilling 87-73 double-overtime victory over 10th-ranked Jones College in the championship game of the MACJC Basketball Tournament played in Scooba.
Along with also leading the Lady Lions in steals (61) and blocked shots (26) as a freshman, Hollings shot a team-best 60.9 percent from the field, including 71.2 percent during MACJC North Division regular-season play, and 70.7 percent from the free throw line. The 6-foot-1 frontcourt player was named MACJC Player of the Week on two occasions this past year.
On the men’s side, EMCC’s Smith averaged a team-leading 15.2 points and club-best 8.4 rebounds per game for the season as a two-time MACJC Player of the Week selection.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 43 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.