Michael Neal of Dayton, Tenn., moved up 16 spots into a tie for second place Friday in the Walmart FLW Tour's prestigious Forrest Wood Cup tournament out of Huntsville, Ala. Neal caught 15 pounds, 12 ounces on day two and is at 24-14 but more than six pounds behind leader John Cox (32-5) of DeBary, Fla., as the top 20 hit Wheeler Lake again today. The winner gets $300,000. Dayton's Andy Morgan and Spring City's Wesley Strader finished 24th and 25th at 19-8 and 19-5, and former Ooltewah resident Jay Kendrick of Grant, Ala., was 41st at 14-7. Each received $10,000.
* As Pell City (Ala.) High School anglers Ean Davis and Grayson Hanson jumped to the top of the Costa Bassmaster national tournament Friday on Kentucky and Barkley lakes with a two-day total of 38-13, brothers Samuel and Matthew Vandagriff from Warren County High in McMinnville, Tenn., dropped a spot to third. First-day leaders Austin Hamner and Aaron Reed of Northside in Tuscaloosa are second at 35-7, and the Vandagriffs have 33-8. Grundy County's Kyle Ingleburger and Kyle Palmer are 60th in the 175-boat event at 16-6, and Whitwell's Nathan Powell and Chase Cantrell are 74th at 13-15 with Rhea County's Drew Gunter and Chase Watson 78th at 13-6. Soddy-Daisy's Jake Beihoffer and Bailey Faires and Rhea's Austin Goins and Bryar Goins are 87th and 88th at 11-5 and 11-2.
Baseball
* Cameron Hughes was 2-for-3 with a walk, two RBIs and a run scored and Jordan Artime and Jordan Ransom hit seventh-inning RBI triples as the Chattanooga youth senior baseball team opened pool play Friday in the RBI World Series in Cincinnati with an 8-3 win at Xavier University over the Houston representative. Chattanooga later fell 4-3 to Passaic (N.J.) RBI at Great American Ball Park. Artime had two RBIs and scored twice in the Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities win. Chattanooga starting pitcher Seth Rogers allowed only one hit in his 3 2/3 innings, and his teammates broke a scoreless tie with a four-run top of the fifth. Houston scored two in the bottom half but Chattanooga had a four-run seventh as well. Chattanooga got only two hits against Passaic (2-0). One was a two-run, two-out double by Matthew Oxford in the sixth inning, when Rogers scored the tying run on a wild pitch. Passaic's Niloyny Rijo was 2-for-2 with two walks, two runs scored and the deciding RBI double in the seventh.
Track & Field
* Kedrick Wilbanks of the Chattanooga Jets Track Club qualified for the 17-18 boys' 100-meter final today in the national AAU Junior Olympic Games in Houston, and the Jets' Nicole Johnson, Lennex Walker, Elexis Foster and McKenzie Ethridge will be in the 17-18 girls' 4x100 relay final. They qualified with a time of 46.70 seconds. Wilbanks' qualifying time was 10.69. The Jets' Danielle Dunning is in both the 100 and 200 finals in the 10-year-old girls' age group.
General
* Class of 2016 Sewanee graduates Amy Lee and Lindsey Liles have become the 33rd and 34th athletes in the school's history to receive NCAA Postgraduate Scholarships. The $7,500 grants honoring athletic and academic excellence are awarded annually to 29 male athletes and 29 females. Lee lettered in swimming as well as cross country and track and field and graduated with a 3.71 grade point average on a 4.0 scale as a biology major. She was a four-time all-conference and two-time all-region runner in cross country and a two-time All-Southern Athletic Association track performer. She is the Tigers' first runner and fifth swimmer/diver to receive an NCAA postgrad scholarship. Liles is Sewanee's fourth women's tennis player to earn the honor, joining her sister Jenny and her former doubles partner, Bronte Goodhue. The younger Liles was an ITA All-American all four years and the SAA player of the year this year, when she finished ranked No. 16 in singles and No. 5 in doubles in NCAA Division III. She had a 4.06 GPA as a biology and English major and was a CoSIDA Academic All-American.