Bryan pair still leading nationals

Bryan College’s Cole Sands and Conner DiMauro lost a little of their first-day margin but stayed in first place Friday in the Carhartt Bassmaster College Series National Championship presented by Bass Pro Shops on their home lake, Chickamauga.

Their five-bass limit totaling 19 pounds, 11 ounces gave Sands and DiMauro a twoday total of 44-4, while second-place Carter McNeil and Cole Floyd from Bethel University got to 43-8 with a 21-2 day. The 116 boats were reduced to 12 for today’s final round out of the Dayton Boat Dock near the Bryan campus, and Bethel also had the fourth-place qualifiers, Cody Huff and Garrett Enders with 37-0.

Drury’s Dalton Combs and Jack Rankin were third with 38-0, Murray State’s Jordan Hartman and Will Gentry were fifth with 36-13 and Tennessee’s Robert Gee and Saxton Long were sixth with 35-4. McKendree joined Bethel with two teams in the finals — the 11th and 12th. The other four are from Montevallo, Virginia Tech, Kansas State and Arkansas.

Bryan’s Bailey Fain and Trevor St. John finished 15th at 30-9, and Griffin Heffington and Mason Cizek were 23rd at 28-4, while Tennessee Tech’s Jacob Woods from Loudon and Samuel Vandagriff from McMinnville were 22nd at 28-11.

As they did Thursday, Sands and DiMauro used a wide variety of lures and techniques to maintain their lead.

“We’ve got hundreds, if not close to a thousand waypoints on this lake,” DiMauro said in a B.A.S.S. release. “We had a decent practice, but we’ve been able to narrow things down and target some key areas. We have to keep our heads down and not get psyched out.”