Dalton State’s Lee in PGA Tour event
Dalton State golfer S.M. Lee gets to play in the Barbasol Championship next week after all. Lee capped his freshman season with the Roadrunners as not only a first-team All-American but the NAIA’s Jack Nicklaus Award winner as national player of the year. In the Barbasol Shootout in Ohio with the other four Nicklaus honorees for a spot in next week’s PGA Tour event at Opelika, Ala., Lee finished second to LSU’s Sam Burns. But Lee recently was given and accepted an invitation to the tournament that includes four major champions — Davis Love III, Retief Goosen, Angel Cabrera and Y.E. Yang — in a strong field. “It’s very interesting when you get a phone call about one of your players getting invited into a PGA Tour event,” DSC coach Ben Rickett said in a school release. “… Obviously he turned the right heads at the Barbasol Shootout in Columbus.”
› Another University of Tennessee at Chattanooga golfer — incoming freshman Connor Nolan from Corona, Calif. — joined 2017 graduate Brooks Thomas in qualifying this week across the country for the U.S. Amateur Championship. The national title will be decided Aug. 14-20 at Riviera Country Club near Los Angeles. UTC had the 2012 champion: Steven Fox. Like area residents Mikey Feher and Brett Patterson elsewhere, Nolan won his 2017 qualifier. It was at La Purisima Golf Course in Lompoc, Calif., and he was co-medalist with a 1-over-par 145 for 36 holes. “I was already excited Connor signed with us last fall,” UTC coach Mark Guhne said in a school release. “I followed him at the U.S. Junior Amateur at The Honors Course, and that was a strong impression he made on us then. It just keeps growing.”
› Sewanee golfers Nic Vandeventer and
Tommy Oliver, who attended high school at Baylor and St. Andrew’s-Sewanee, respectively, took incoming Tennessee freshmen Chase Roswall from Bristol and Spencer Cross from Sevierville to an extra hole Friday before falling in the quarterfinals of the 2017 Tennessee Four-Ball at The Country Club of Morristown. Roswall, the reigning state match play champion, also played at Baylor. Oliver and Vandeventer earlier beat Hays Moreland from Memphis and Davis Baxter from Nolensville 5 and 4. Roswall and Cross, who also won 5 and 4 in the round of 16, will play 2013 champions Lee Maxwell and Wes Korth in one semifinal today, while brothers Tanner and Tory Davis from Piney Flats challenge defending champs Jack Smith and Ryan Greer.
BASKETBALL
› The Chattanooga Bombers senior men’s basketball team continued its dominance in the Tennessee Senior Olympics with another gold-medal finish the last week of June in Franklin. Earlier in the month the Bombers finished third in the 80-84 age division in the National Senior Games in Birmingham, Ala. That division included 16 teams, and the Bombers faced opponents from Rhode Island, Arizona, Iowa, Mississippi and Iowa. In the state games the group of Clarence Shattuck, Joe Sykes, Don Myers, Ken Mink, Henry Jacks and Larry Davis totaled six medals in the individual events of 3-point shots, free throws and hot shot in addition to their 17th consecutive top-two age-group finish.
GENERAL
› Carman Lastoria has been elevated to the position of sports information director at Lee University following the retirement of George Starr, and Michael Colander has Lastoria’s old position of assistant SID after two years as a graduate assistant in the department. He earned a master’s degree in business administration from Lee in May after getting a bachelor’s in digital media in 2015. “I’m incredibly honored and humbled to take this next step in my professional career,” said Lastoria, a 2008 Lee grad who was a youth and associate pastor in Chattanooga for four years before returning to the school. “It has been one of the greatest blessings in my life to work under (Starr) over these past five seasons. His guidance and direction have helped shape me both professionally and personally in profound ways.”