Soccer Mocs host exhibition on Thursday
The 2018 University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s soccer team has been together a week now, and Thursday night the Mocs will host Belmont in a preseason exhibition match at 6 at Finley Stadium. UTC will play Sunday afternoon at Tennessee Tech in another exhibition before opening the season Aug. 17 at 3 p.m. against Alabama A&M at Finley. There will be no charge for admission. “Anything we do up until August 17, even in our two preseason friendlies that we have coming up, we’ve got to look at them as teaching moments — modified training sessions, per se,” coach Gavin McKinney said in a Monday release. “It will be two great games against two good opponents. I think those games will give us as a staff a really clear indication of what we need to work on going forward.” UTC has 15 players back from last season’s 5-10-4 team that went 3-4-2 in the Southern Conference, including SoCon freshman of the year Chloe Arnold and all- conference selection Jordan Mueller, plus seven freshmen. “Team building, the daily training — all that stuff just allows us to get to know the kids a bit better and for them to get to know us,” McKinney said. “They’ve got to have a strong bond with each other. I think they are getting more used to each other and they are getting better. They seem to be excited and hungry.”
LACROSSE
Former Tennessee Wesleyan women’s lacrosse goalie Kelly Bilz was named recently the head coach of that sport at her alma mater. She follows Derrel Martin, who left after the 11-5 season this past spring to fill the coaching vacancy at Lee University. Bilz was a second-team and then a firstteam all-conference selection in her threeyear playing career before graduating in 2017 at TWU, which won Appalachian Athletic Conference championships in 2015 and 2017 and was the AAC tournament runner-up in 2016. She spent the past year as a personal trainer at Blount Memorial Wellness Center in Alcoa and the goalie coach for Knoxville Catholic High School. “Kelly is a Tennessee Wesleyan alum, and her love for the program and university showed throughout the interview process,” athletic director Donny Mayfield said in the announcement post. “Kelly had a lot of success during her playing career here at TWU, and I’m looking forward to seeing how she carries over that experience into her coaching career as she builds on the winning culture set in the program.” All-AAC first-team players MiKayla Virden, Brittany Turner and Ginnabeth Day and second-teamer Emily Waldroup are among the returners from the team that went 9-1 in league play. Bilz thanked Mayfield “for not only giving me the opportunity to be the coach here but for allowing me to have the chance to give back to a team that has been so dear to me and shaped me to be the woman I am now. I am excited to see how I can build and grow this program to the potential I know we can be.”
TENNIS
Former Presbyterian College standout Alejandro Bejar from Madrid, Spain, has joined the Lee University tennis programs as a graduate assistant coach, head coach Patric Hynes announced Monday. “I am thrilled to have Alejandro with us,” Hynes said in a release. “He had a brilliant career at Presbyterian College playing for a couple of the best young coaches going around. As a player he was part of a program that won its first-ever Division I conference championship for any sport in school history. On top of that he achieved a stellar GPA (3.6) and represented his school with class. He’s a high achiever who comes highly recommended.” Bejar went 61-35 in singles in his four-year Blue Hose career that ended this past spring. He was 24-2 and the team most valuable player as a freshman and was Presbyterian’s overall athletics player of the year as a sophomore. He was a team captain and president of the school’s Business Club as a senior. Having earned a business administration degree, he has entered Lee’s MBA program.