Volleyball Mocs fall to Furman
The Furman University volleyball team improved to 10-0 in Southern Conference matches this season with a 3-1 win Friday at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The Paladins (16-7 overall) had beat UTC 3-0 four weeks ago in Greenville, S.C. This time the set scores were 25-16, 25-22, 21-25, 25-15. Ally Ford and Dani Szczepanski each had 12 kills, Ford with nine digs, and Miranda Elpers added eight kills and 15 digs for the Mocs (12-13, 5-6). They got 22 and 21 assists from Lauren Greenspoon and Madison Bergren and 27 digs from Megan Kaufman. Furman got 18 kills from Christen Sikora and 37 assists and 26 digs from Hunter Thompson.
› Lee University got 12 and 10 kills and three aces apiece from Silvia Sartori and Alex Reuter in defeating visiting Valdosta State 3-1 (25-22, 21-25, 25-21, 25-21) in Gulf South Conference volleyball Friday night. Ellisia Kimble added eight kills, Kristi Farley had 18 assists and Sadie Johnson had 15 assists and 11 digs for Lee (16-6, 7-3), while Brooke Wilsman had 15 digs.
› The Sewanee volleyball team ended its regular season at 13-13 with a 3-0 nonconference home win Friday against Berea. Destiny Stewart had 11 kills and 10 digs, Olivia Nichols 10 kills, Caroline Owens seven kills, Claire Crow 18 assists and Peyton Parent 12 digs for the Tigers, who face fourth-seeded Millsaps at Berry in a Southern Athletic Association tournament quarterfinal next Friday at 3 p.m.
BASKETBALL
› The Tennessee Wesleyan men’s basketball team plays at Fisk today in Nashville after opening its season Friday night with a 94-78 loss to Rust at Fisk. TWU was predicted to finish fifth in the 11-team Appalachian Athletic Conference this season.
› Tennessee Wesleyan was picked to finish fourth in AAC women’s basketball with 2017 league tournament winner Bryan College fifth out of 13 teams. Preseason 19th-ranked Reinhardt is favored to win, led by sophomore forward Rebecca Cheeks from Sonoraville High School, who received NAIA All-America honorable mention last season. Jada Hubbard from Heritage High is an Eagles junior, and Bethany Headrick from Ringgold High is another sophomore.
› The Covenant College men were picked to finish third in the USA South West Division in the 2017-18 basketball season, behind favorite Maryville and LaGrange, and the Covenant women were projected as sixth in the coaches’ polls released this week. Maryville shared the women’s West top spot with Piedmont.
TENNIS
› UTC’s Delaney Edwards won 6-4, 6-3 over a Georgia State player and lost 6-1, 7-6 (5) to a Purdue player in the Piedmont Invitational women’s tennis tournament Friday in Atlanta. Two other Mocs, Sydney Patton and Tamri Chalaganidze, won three-set singles matches against Purdue participants but lost to Georgia State players. UTC won three of four doubles matches against Air Force, the wins coming from Chalaganidze with
Annie Tarwater, Patton with Caroline Hall and Edwards with Emma Van Hee.
SOCCER
› Having won the AAC regular-season championship and a berth in the NAIA national tournament in its last match, the Bryan College women’s soccer team hosted 16th-ranked Cumberland in a nonconference finale Friday and lost 2-0 on two corner-kick scores. The shots count was close, 10-9 for the visiting Phoenix (12-3-1). Bryan is 11-5 and takes a 9-2 AAC record into the league tournament that begins Tuesday.
GOLF
› The Tennessee Challenge Cup at The Honors Course at the first of the week went the way of the 16 amateurs from the Tennessee Golf Association against 16 pros from the Tennessee Section PGA, 15 points to nine. Rain early Monday led to the cancellation of foursomes (alternate shot) play. The amateurs won the four-ball competition 4.5 to 3.5 and officially won the singles Tuesday 10.5 to 5.5. Council Fire professional Richard Rebne was part of a four-ball win and beat amateur Bob Rice of Pikeville 3 and 1 in singles. Another pro point came from a duo including former UTC golfer Matt Brock.