AREA SPORTS NOTES Signal’s Burns is City women’s golf champ

Signal Mountain’s Bethany Burns closed with a 74 on Thursday at Black Creek Club to post a one-stroke victory over Colette Murray in the Chattanooga Women’s Golf Association’s annual City Amateur Championship. Burns was fourth in the championship flight after a first-round 79 on Tuesday, when Murray led by five strokes after opening with a 70. Burns moved up to second place with her own 70 on Wednesday, but Murray’s 72 increased her overall lead to seven strokes. However, Murray, the veteran women’s golf coach at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga who had won the past three City titles, closed with an 82 and was unable to force a playoff against Burns, a senior this past season at Ivy League program Dartmouth who helped Signal Mountain to a first-place finish in “A” division net scoring in the CWGA’s City Amateur team competition last week on the same course. Other first-place finishers Thursday at Black Creek in the Open Division were Hazel Davis in net scoring for the championship flight at 226, Karen Burns in gross scoring at 249 and Kim Smith in net at 225 in the second flight, and Katie Young in gross at 290 and Janice Pendergrast in net at 245 in the third flight. In the Senior Division, which played two rounds, first-place finishers were Darlene Werhnyak in gross at 162 and Debbie Lambert in net at 142 in the first flight, Susan Thurman in gross at 175 and

Jan Davenport in net at 152 in the second flight, and Margaret Massey in gross at 205 and Sylvia Friedl in net at 167 in the third flight.

› Ringgold’s Ben Rebne tied for sixth and Dalton’s Matthew Cleary shared ninth at the 99th Georgia Amateur Championship, which was won by recent Georgia Tech graduate Luke Schniederjans of Alpharetta, whose honors with the Yellow Jackets included two individual victories at the Carpet Capital Collegiate Classic, held each fall at The Farm Golf Club in Rocky Face. Schniederjans won a playoff on the first hole Sunday against Suwanee’s Brett Barron on the Highlands Course at the Atlanta Athletic Club in Johns Creek, where they finished 72 holes of regulation play at par, 213. Rebne, a recent Dalton State College graduate and 2020 Jack Nicklaus Award winner as the NAIA’s top golfer, had rounds of 2-over-par 73, 74 and 71 to finish at 218. Cleary was another stroke back after shooting 74-70-75. Dalton’s David Noll Jr., a two-time winner (2003, ’11) and three-time runner-up (’05, ’09, ’12) in the event, fought back from his opening 78 with a 71 to make the cut but closed with an 80 and tied for 52nd in the prestigious tournament that debuted in 1916, when the winner was 14-year-old Bobby Jones.

ACADEMICS

› The United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association’s All-Academic lists announced this week included several area programs being honored for team and/or individual achievements. The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s track team posted the second-highest GPA in NCAA Division I at 3.795 — Iona College was first at 3.87 — to easily clear the 3.0 bar needed for All-Academic team status at that level, as 12 Mocs posted a 4.0 in the spring and eight did so in the fall for coach Andy Meyer’s squad. In Division II, Lee University coach Caleb Morgan’s Lady Flames (3.482) and Flames (3.133) were both recognized, with individual achievement — which factors in athletic as well as classroom performance — by Jordan Allison, Charlee Boxall and Celine Ritter from the women’s team and Caleb Eagleson on the men’s team. In Division III, Sewanee’s women (3.482) were honored for the 15th straight year and Sewanee’s men (3.133) earned the award for the 10th time overall and eighth time in nine years; both teams were coached by Bill Cooper. In the NAIA, coach Sam Roberts’ Tennessee Wesleyan’s women (3.12) were honored, with their Mysteree Bottorff (3.12) receiving the individual accolade.

› Three programs and 20 student-athletes from Cleveland State were recognized with 2019-20 NJCAA All-Academic honors. Teams with combined GPAs of 3.0 or better for the academic year are honored, and Cleveland State made the cut in baseball (3.17), women’s cross country (3.12) and softball (3.07). Individuals are recognized for their GPA success with first- (4.0), second- (3.803.99) or third-team (3.60-3.79) honors. The baseball Cougars led the way for the school with eight players recognized: Brennan Davis, Bryce Jenkins and

Jared Young on the first team,

Nathan Camp, Bradley Hayes and Stokes Needham on the second team, and Jack Patterson and Ryan Wilson on the third team. Other honorees by sport: softball — second team,

Kaylee Hughes; third team,

Kat Cechini, Macy Smith, Hannah Turner, Anna Yell; volleyball — first team, Celie Patterson; third team, Hannah Collins, Aly Grace Lemons; men’s golf — second team, Seth Ward; third team, Colbe Cagle; men’s basketball — first team,

Demonte Person; women’s cross country — first team, Jordan Wagers.

SOFTBALL

› Covenant College has hired Jenny Rohn as head coach of its softball program, which had reached the USA South tournament three straight years before this past season came to a sudden ending in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Thirteen players are expected back from that team for next season, when Rohn will be the fifth leader in the Lookout Mountain program’s history. Rohn was an assistant the past three seasons at Harvard, which won two Ivy League titles and made two NCAA tournament appearances during that time. Rohn started 156 of 197 games she played in four seasons at Western Michigan, where she was a senior in 2015. A volunteer assistant at Harvard in 2016, she was the interim head coach at Birmingham Groves High School in Michigan the following year, then spent a season on the staff at Louisiana-Monroe before returning to Harvard. She has also worked as a private hitting and skills instructor and was the head coach of a youth select team for four years.

› The Gulf South Conference’s all-decade team for softball that was announced this week included honorable mention for former Lee University star Taylor Moran from Chattanooga, a Silverdale Baptist Academy graduate who is the only NCAA All-American in the history of the Cleveland program, which joined the Division II ranks only in the past decade. Moran, who shined as both a slugger and a pitcher as a freshman in 2017, received the All-America nod as a sophomore, when she made the All-GSC lineup for the second straight year. She was unable to play beyond her junior season due to injury.

BASEBALL

› Ben Holland, the GSC baseball player of the year in 2016, received honorable mention to the league’s all-decade team for that sport when it was released this week. Holland, a fifth-year senior that season, put together a 22-game hitting streak and hit .424 with 18 home runs, 23 doubles and 54 RBIs, and his .859 slugging percentage ranked fifth and his .533 on-base percentage 10th in D-II as he became the Flames’ first NCAA All-American.

SWIMMING AND DIVING

› McCallie’s 2019-20 team tied rival Baylor in February to earn the program’s second straight Tennessee Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association state championship and 21st overall, and that Blue Tornado lineup had four individual and three relay times receive All-America status this month from the National Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association. Times that rank in the top 100 in the country for the academic year are recognized, and McCallie’s All-America times were all in the top 50. Will Jackson,a Tennessee signee who won four state titles and was named the championship meet’s outstanding swimmer, clocked times that nationally ranked sixth in the 200-meter freestyle, 10th in the 500 free and 37th in the 100 free. Sam Powe, who was a sophomore, ranked 31st in the 100 backstroke, an event he won at state. In relay recognition, the 200 free team of Conor Kinley, Strib Stribling, Reece Gallagher and Jackson ranked 41st, the 200 medley team of Powe, Gallagher, Kyle Berry and Kinley was 44th and the 400 free team of Jackson, Stribling, Berry and Powe was 46th. Also, McCallie was No. 8 in the season’s final NISCA national dual meet team rankings for large boys’ independent schools.

SOCCER

› Bryan men’s soccer coach Jeremy Davidson has released the Lions’ 2020 schedule ahead of his second season in charge in Dayton, having led the team to a 10-6-2 overall record and a second-place finish in the Appalachian Athletic Conference last fall, the fourth time in five years the program has reached the league’s title match. The Lions are set to open their 14-game schedule at Martin Methodist on Sept. 8; two days later, they’ll play their first of seven home matches when the Chattanooga Red Wolves SC Academy team visits. After a Sept. 14 road game against Dalton State, Bryan hosts Milligan on Sept. 16 to open AAC play. The regular-season finale and senior night is Oct. 28 against Union College. The complete schedule is at bryanlions.com.

VOLLEYBALL

› Former Cleveland State outside hitter Stephanie Burke will continue her academic and athletic career at Brewton-Parker College, with the Shiloh High School graduate from Atlanta signing recently with the NAIA and Southern States Athletic Conference program in Douglas, Georgia. Last fall in her lone season at Cleveland State, Burke was an All-Region VII selection and set single-season program records for kills (247), kills per set (2.87) and points (262), and she tied teammate Aly Grace Lemons for the single-match program record for kills (21).

WRESTLING

› UTC will face a new foe on the mat in league competition next season as Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky, joins the Southern Conference as an associate member in wrestling. The Knights, who competed in Division II the past four seasons, will push the SoCon’s number of wrestling teams to nine as they join the Mocs, Appalachian State, Campbell, The Citadel, Davidson, Gardner-Webb, Presbyterian and Virginia Military Institute. Bellarmine’s men’s lacrosse program has been a D-I member since 2006 and a SoCon associate in that sport since the league added it in 2015.