Sewanee's league announces name

The new conference including Sewanee has chosen a name: the Southern Athletic Association. It already had been announced that the league comprised of seven current members of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference and NCAA Division III newcomer Berry College will begin competition in the 2012-13 school year. Other SAA members will be Oglethorpe (Atlanta), Birmingham-Southern, Millsaps (Jackson, Miss.), Rhodes (Memphis), Centre (Danville, Ky.) and Hendrix (Conway, Ark.). "Our new conference affiliation will allow us to continue long-standing rivalries with outstanding small college in the Southeast," Sewanee athletic director Mark Webb said in a school release Friday, "and I anticipate that our overall student-athlete experience will be enhanced by the regional focus of the new association." The remaining SCAC members are based in Texas and Colorado. Oglethorpe AD Jay Gardiner will serve as interim commissioner of the SAA.

Soccer

  • COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- University of Tennessee at Chattanooga junior Becca Smith took three shots and made two as the Lady Mocs opened their 2011 soccer season Friday evening with a 2-1 victory at Tennessee Tech. "Becca is a veteran and everybody knows she can play," UTC coach J.D. Kyzer said. "She had some injuries last year that made it difficult for her to showcase the talent she showed her freshman year." After Tech's Kerri Reid netted a shot that deflected off the crossbar 28:47 into the game, Smith equalized at the 40:33 mark and drilled a shot from outside the box into the top of the net for the winner at 87:47. Freshman Crystal Mackezyk got her the ball for a one-on-one run. "Crystal played the ball to my feet," Smith said. "I took a few dribbles to get away from the defender and tried to shoot it high over the goalie and it went in." Taylor Mangrum made six saves for UTC, which hosts Austin Peay at 2 p.m. Sunday at Finley Stadium. TTU had a 10-9 edge in shots, three by Notre Dame graduate Kris Cambron, and a 6-1 advantage in corner kicks. Before playing in a game for UTC, junior Tennessee Wesleyan transfer Kathleen Kent from Hixson has gone with her sister Blair to join the other Kent triplet, Becca, on the inaugural USC Beaufort team.

Volleyball

  • The UTC volleyball team will hold its first Blue-Gold Match under new coach Travis Filar at 4 p.m. Sunday at Maclellan Gymnasium, and as with all the Lady Mocs' home matches there will be no admission charge. UTC has only one senior, middle blocker Ellie Kuhn, and Southern Conference libero of the year Paula Passmore heads a junior group that also includes middle blocker Christina Teter and outside hitters Meagan Ernd and Heather Parman. There are six sophomores and three freshmen on the roster. Bone Marrow Donation Awareness will be a theme of the intrasquad event, with materials provided fans about the "Be a Match" registry in honor of Parman's father and Dr. Carolyn Thompson, wife of chancellor Dr. Roger Brown. The season begins next weekend in a tournament at Southern Mississippi. The first home match will be against Belmont on Aug. 30.

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