Cash continues streak of USTA national titles and other sports news

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Arkansas-SEMO Live Blog

Top-seeded Wesley Cash of Chattanooga and Mike Tammen of Portland, Ore., won the USTA Men 55 national indoor doubles championship Friday in Boise, Idaho, with a 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory over No. 2-seeded Californians Mike Fedderly and T. Lehto. For Cash, a teaching pro at Manker Patten, this was the ninth consecutive USTA national doubles title in the age group, going back to 2012. Tammen plays this morning in the singles final. He's the No. 2 seed facing No. 4 seed Vallis Wilder of Fort Worth, Texas.

Golf

• University of Tennessee at Chattanooga golfer Chris Robb lost 3 and 1 to fellow Scot Bradley Neil in the round of 16 Friday at the 119th British Amateur at Royal Portrush, but Mocs teammate Zac Stolz shot a 4-under-par 68 in the Rice Planters Amateur at Mount Pleasant, S.C., and is tied for ninth with one round to go. Stolz had six birdies. UTC's Stuart Thomas and Wes Gosselin made the cut at the Greystone Invitational in Birmingham.

• New Sewanee women's basketball coach Tom Campbell is leaving Danville, Ky., as a state champion golfer. The Centre College women's basketball assistant since 2007 also has been the men's golf head coach at the Danville school since 2010, and Thursday he won the Kentucky State Amateur with a 12-under-par 204 for 54 holes at Cherry Blossom Golf & Country Club in Georgetown. Campbell, 44, edged Denver Haddix Jr. of Lexington, a 33-year-old former Morehead State player, by one stroke. "I've been playing this a long time and never really thought about winning," Campbell told The Courier-Journal of Louisville after closing with a 70. "I just had a great week. Everything fell in place. ... It's just an amazing feeling to be 44 years old and out here with these young guys and competing." He said he played with two teenagers the first two days. "They have no fear," he said. "They're swinging out of their shoes, ripping it and letting it go. I'm out here just holding on for dear life with both hands on the wheel thinking, 'Don't crash.'" He begins his new job on July 1.

Rowing

• Twins Connor and Quinn Nash capped their Chattanooga Junior Rowing careers with a bronze-medal finish in the men's pair at the USRowing Junior National Championship Regatta last Sunday. That is the highest finish ever for CJR in the 16-year history of the championships. The Nashes, who are headed to Gonzaga University, finished one second behind the second-place boat and four seconds behind the gold medalists, according to CJR head coach Jack Fish, who added that they "began their rowing careers in a pair as eighth-graders because they were too small to be matched with other members of the team. They returned to the pair this year because they were too tall for the other members of the team."

Academics

• UTC had 142 athletes on the 2013-14 Southern Conference Academic Honor Roll released Thursday and led the league with 17 achieving 4.0 grade point averages for the school year: Kayla Freeman from basketball, Emily McLennan from golf, Liana Rodrigues from softball, Hailey Callis and Clare Latham from soccer and Mark Cole, Lucas Cotter, John Gilpin, Patrick O'Brien, Paul Stuart, Joanna Elmore, Teghan Henderson, Helenka Kis, Maddison Melchionna, Katie Ray, Keeley Stewart and Jessica York from cross country and track and field. The football team led UTC with 23 honor roll members, while the women's running teams totaled 17 and softball and women's soccer each had 16. Wofford tennis player Sarah Evans from Chattanooga and Girls Prepararatory School also was among the league's 4.0 students, and Davidson tennis player Evan Watkins from McCallie also earned a commissioner's medal for a GPA of 3.5 or better. He and Evans also were on the SoCon spring academic team with the 33 UTC athletes previously reported, along with baseball players Stryker Brown of Dalton at Georgia Southern and James Plaisted of Tullahoma at Wofford.

• GPS players Emily Cullum, Blakley Fine, Haden Gibbons, Katie Morgan and Anna Claire Pierce have been informed by US Lacrosse that they are all-academic high school players for 2013-14. That requires a minimum GPA of 3.6 on a 4.0 scale.