Dalton State’s Simmons an All-American
Dalton State College’s Carnilious Simmons
is a second-team NAIA Division I All-America basketball player for the 2016-17 season. Simmons, a junior forward from Atlanta, averaged 15 points and 10.4 rebounds a game for the 29-5 Roadrunners, who were ranked third going into the national tournament and reached the quarterfinals, losing to the eventual champions. DSC point guard Isaiah
Box received All-America honorable mention.
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga seniors
Justin Tuoyo and Tre’ McLean were selected for National Association of Basketball Coaches All-District 22 teams for 2016-17. Tuoyo made the first team and McLean the second team in the district, which comprises the Southern Conference. Other first-teamers were T.J. Cromer of East Tennessee State, Eric Garcia of Wofford and Devin Sibley and Kris Acox of Furman. Tuoyo was the SoCon’s defensive player of the year for the third time, and McLean scored 35 points in one game — the most by a Moc since Z. Mason scored 41 in December 2013.
TENNIS
Former Girls Preparatory School tennis standout
Claire Bartlett from one of Chattanooga’s royal families in the sport has been hired as the tennis service representative for Tennessee by USTA Southern. The position was created in 2005. “We are extremely pleased to add Claire to our staff, as her successful background in playing and promoting tennis makes her an ideal candidate to help us expand the game in Tennessee,” USTA Southern executive director and COO John Callen said in a Thursday release. The section’s director of programs and player development,
Bill Ozaki, said Bartlett “is a special talent who can relate to people throughout the tennis community. Her knowledge and passion for growing the game among young adults is especially important as we work to expand the sports among that population.” After leading GPS to three state team championships and earning three TSSAA titles herself, Bartlett played for Virginia and then transferred to Florida and helped the Gators win SEC and NCAA championships in 2010. She has a master’s degree in sport psychology and motor behavior from Tennessee and has taught tennis at the Knoxville Racquet Club, the Racquet Club of Memphis and GPS. She created the 20&UP Tennis League, a social league for young adults of all ability levels, and started a sport psychology consulting business.
The second year of the DecoTurf National High School Championships tennis tournament in Chattanooga begins this morning and is scheduled to wrap up late Saturday afternoon. Unlike at its past home in Louisville, Ky., the DecoTurf in Chattanooga includes girls and boys the same weekend, and it will use courts at Baylor, GPS, McCallie, Champions Club, Brainerd and Warner Park. There is no admission charge. The 64 participating teams include GPS and Baylor’s boys and girls in the A Division, the Soddy-Daisy girls in the B and Signal Mountain in the boys-only C.
SOFTBALL
Tennessee co-head softball coach Karen
Weekly, who got her coaching start at UTC, registered her 1,000th victory in 19th-ranked Tennessee’s 9-2 home win Wednesday night against No. 25 North Carolina. She is the 33rd head coach in Division I softball history to reach that milestone, and one of the previous 32 is her co-coach, Ralph
Weekly. They are the first husband and wife to achieve the feat.
Bryan College defeated visiting Point University 4-1 and 5-4 in Appalachian Athletic Conference softball Thursday. Sydney
West pitched a seven-hitter in game one, when
Olivia Gore was 2-for-3 with a home run, a double and three RBIs and Becca
Zimmerman and Ashley Brown each was 2-for3 as well. Heidi Smith scored two runs. Aubrie
Osborne was 3-for-4 with two RBIs in game two for the Lady Lions (12-12, 6-0), and Hannah O’Shields was 2-for-4 with the tying double in the bottom of the seventh inning. Leslie Beecham, running for Zimmerman, scored the winning run on an error.
SHOTGUN SPORTS
Soddy-Daisy High School senior and Martin Methodist College signee
Eli Christman has moved up to the Masters class from AA after an impressive performance last weekend in the Seminole Cup sporting clays tournament in Woodbine, Ga. He’s one of 27 Masters competitors in Tennessee — and one of only four juniors (under 21 years old) — and he made the jump with 19 “punches” in his nine categories at Woodbine after earning nine in his last tournament. Going from AA to Masters requires 20 punches in two years, with a maximum of four per event for outshooting at least 45 people. Christman, who was the only junior against a two-time Olympian and the Army marksman in the finals of a January tournament in Miami, has been concentrating on international skeet in recent months but placed in seven of the nine sporting clays events last week. He earned four punches and $750 for his AA thirdplace 177 points (out of 200) in the Seminole Cup main competition.
TENNIS
The Lee University men’s tennis team won 6-3 at Alabama-Huntsville in their Gulf South Conference match Wednesday, but the Lee women fell 8-1 at home to UAH on Thursday with Francesca Tondi winning 6-3, 5-7, 10-4 at No. 1 singles for the Lady Flames (5-3, 2-3). The Lee men (7-3, 2-2) swept doubles play and got singles wins from Rhys Milne, Daniel Prata and Boyd Blackburn.
Completing successful trips to California, the 14th-ranked Sewanee women beat No. 38 Caltech 8-1 on Wednesday in Pasadena, and the No. 23 Sewanee men downed Caltech 7-2. For the female Tigers (8-4), Clementina
Davila and Darby Duval won together in doubles and also in singles, and Ellie Czura won at both No. 2 doubles, with
Christina Merchant, and No. 2 singles. Meredith Heitland and Haley Tucker won at Nos. 5 and 6 singles. The Sewanee men (11-2) got two victories each from Avery Schober, Andres Carro, Jack Gray, Jordan Brewer and Aubrey Davis. Covenant’s Matthew Harvie and Chris Cox won together and separately at the top of the lineuip in a 5-4 USA South home loss Wednesday against Piedmont. Trey Wood and Connor Shimmel also won in doubles for Covenant.