Area teams win in AAC tournament
Both Bryan College teams and the Tennessee Wesleyan women advanced to today’s semifinals in the Appalachian Athletic Conference basketball tournaments after winning Thursday at Kingsport, Tennessee. The top-seeded Bryan women rose to 29-1 with their 28th consecutive victory, 77-52 over Montreat, and at 2 p.m. plays fourth seed Reinhardt (19-11), which beat St. Andrews 75-57 as Ringgold graduate Bethany Headrick had 21 points and 12 rebounds and Heritage’s Jada Hubbard added 13 points and four assists. For Bryan,
Shayla Ludy had 15 points and 10 rebounds, Tesa Johnson 13 points, Deandra Luna 12 points and six assists and Destiny Kassner 10 points. Third-seeded Wesleyan (21-8) won 55-42 over Point with 15 points, 14 rebounds and five steals from Hunter Simpson and 14 points from Jacobi
Lynn. Gina Dick and Madison
McClurg contributed eight and seven rebounds and four assists each. Bryan’s fourth-seeded Lions (16-13) downed Reinhardt 89-75 with 17 points apiece and 10 and eight rebounds from Brandon Thomas and Clay Hertel, 16 points and 13 rebounds from EJ Bush, 12 points from Isaiah McClain and seven assists from Luke Janney. They now face top seed Union College, which Bryan beat in the regular season.
› Parker Suedekum was 4-of-5 on 3-point shots and scored 22 points to go with five assists in leading the Lee University men to a 76-65 Gulf South Conference home victory Thursday night against Union University. That was after Lee’s Lady Flames defeated Union 72-68 for a season sweep of NCAA Division II’s sixth-ranked team. Lindsey
Roddy had 19 points and nine rebounds for the Lee women (215, 15-3), and Becca Cheeks and
Taylor Boggess scored 17 and 12 points while Camryn Grant also had nine rebounds. Ryan Montgomery and Cody Jones each scored 14 points for the Flames (14-12, 11-7), and Montgomery and
Kentrell Evans cleared eight and seven rebounds.
› Loyola of New Orleans defeated host Dalton State 72-63 in Southern States Athletic Conference men’s play, but Elijah Staley, Sean Chislom and
Randy Bell scored 19, 17 and 16 points for DSC (18-11, 13-8). Chislom also had 10 rebounds and three blocks, Staley had eight rebounds and Sean Cranney delivered 10 assists.