UTC women win in SoCon tennis
The fourth-seeded University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s tennis team beat Mercer 4-0 in the Southern Conference tournament Friday at the Champions Club, after the UTC men lost 4-0 to Mercer. The female Mocs (10-7) won the doubles point with Samantha Caswell and Emma Van Hee prevailing 6-4 and Caroline Hall and Bogdana Zaporozhets winning 6-2 and then got singles victories from Delaney Edwards (6-2, 6-4), Van Hee (6-1, 6-4) and Zaporozhets (6-3, 6-4) to end the team contest. They play top-seeded Furman in the semifinals at 2 p.m. today. Furman beat UNC Greensboro 4-0, East Tennessee State topped Wofford by the same score and Samford defeated Western Carolina 4-2. In the other men’s matches, ETSU and Furman won 4-0 over The Citadel and Wofford and Samford edged UNCG 4-3.
› Sewanee’s top-seeded tennis teams beat the Hendrix women 5-0 and the Hendrix men 6-0 in Friday’s quarterfinals in the Southern Athletic Association tournament at Murfreesboro.
SOFTBALL
› Chattanooga State stretched its softball winning streak to 32 games Friday in a TCCAA home doubleheader against thirdplace Volunteer State, but the Lady Tigers (44-8, 27-1) had to go 10 innings to win 5-4 and then rallied from five runs down in the sixth inning to win 6-5 in seven. They scored four in the sixth. Kaleigh Wynne pitched all 10 innings with eight strikeouts in the first game, when she hit a two-run home run in her first plate appearance and was walked in her other four, Kylie Longmire
was 2-for-3 with a homer and two walks and Alyssia Bowen was 3-for-5 with an RBI. Longmire was 2-for-3 again in game two with an RBI and a run, while Madison Tidmore was 2-for-4 with a triple, an RBI and two runs and Kayla Woody was 2-for-4 with a run and the winning RBI.
› Stevie Baird was 2-for-3 with a homer, a double and four RBIs and Claudia Jones
was 1-for-2 with a double and three RBIs as Lee University routed visiting West Georgia 11-2 in Gulf South Conference softball. Also for Lee (23-26, 11-17), Abby McKinney was 2-for-2 with two RBIs and Lily Hatcher and Kayla Gooch each had two hits and scored twice.
› Millsaps ended Sewanee’s softball season Friday with a 6-1 win in the SAA tournament at Warner Park. Rachel Hoffman’s
second-inning homer gave Sewanee (4-32) a brief lead, and she made the All-SAA first team with her .326 batting average (up 100 points from last year). Berry beat Centre 8-0 and Birmingham-Southern topped Hendrix 2-0 to set up the winners-bracket final, and Rhodes edged Hendrix 7-6 and Millsaps downed Centre 10-4 in elimination games.
BASEBALL
› Lee lost 13-2 to visiting West Georgia in the opener Friday of their GSC baseball series. Tyler Payne was 2-for-3 with an RBI double for Lee (23-21, 14-10). Today is Military Appreciation Day with many fan activities.
› Sewanee’s baseball season ended Friday in Memphis with a 5-2 loss to Centre in the SAA tournament. Jared Demkowicz, Chris McNulty and Jake Woolard each was 2-for-4 for the Tigers (12-22).
› Covenant lost 18-5 to visiting Pfeiffer (28-7), but Brooks DuBose was 2-for-3 with a triple and a sacrifice fly, Joel Johnson was 2-for-4 with two runs and an RBI and Devin Cerrato, Caleb Bloye and Daniel Johnson also had two hits each for the Scots (13-23).
› Cleveland State topped TCCAA visitor Dyersburg State 6-4 and AAC co-leaders Bryan and Tennessee Wesleyan won 13-0 at Montreat and 7-2 at Point in series openers Friday. See www.timesfreepress.com for more details.
LACROSSE
› The Sewanee lacrosse teams advanced to SAA semifinals Sunday with home victories Friday, 20-3 over Berry for the women and 11-9 over Hendrix for the men. Sarah Strand, Catherine Crigler, Brooke Winfield, Grace Zechman and Kit Sommi scored three goals apiece for the female Tigers (12-5), Strand with two assists and Crigler, Winfield and Zechman with one each. Henry Burns had five goals and Jake Vaughn and Wil Friedman netted two apiece for the Sewanee men (9-6).