Both Lee University cross country teams were picked to win Gulf South Conference championships this fall. The Lee men won the league meet last year, but West Alabama is the defending women's champion. Lee's Lady Flames got five first-place votes, five seconds and a third for 114 total points, whle West Alabama also had five firsts and totaled 107 points. Alabama-Huntsville and Union (Tenn.) were third and fourth in the women's predictions with 97 and 86 points. The Flames got nine first-place votes and 99 points in the men's balloting, followed by UAH with one first and 90 points and West Alabama with the other first and 78 points. Shorter and West Florida were fourth and fifth with 69 and 65. "We are very humbled by the recognition," Lee coach Caleb Morgan said in a school release Friday. "We know we have a target on our back, (but) we would love to have the opportunity to repeat as champs this year. I am very excited for our women's program. Our girls know we haven't (officially) had a women's team win a GSC championship at Lee. They would love to be the first."
Tennis
* New University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women's tennis coach Chad Camper announced the team's fall-semester schedule Friday, and it includes four tournaments. The first is Sept. 16-18 at USC-Upstate in Spartanburg, followed by UTC's own Steve Baras Fall Classic set for Sept. 30-Oct. 1 at the Champions Club. Camper's Mocs will play in an ITA regional Oct. 21-24 at Middle Tennessee State and Oct. 28-30 in the Roberta Alison Fall Classic at Tuscaloosa, Ala. "I really like the regional tournaments we have on the schedule this fall," Camper said in a UTC release. "I am looking forward to hosting the Baras, and all of these events are good tests for our team." The Mocs return five letter-winners from 2015-16, led by All-Southern Conference Samantha Caswell, a junior.
Baseball
* Covenant College baseball coach Doug Simons has replaced one of his former players with another as an assistant coach. The Lookout Mountain school announced Friday that Paul Phillips is returning to take the place vacated by Ben Wharton, now the head coach at Chattanooga Christian School. Phillips spent the past year coaching with The Hit Factory in Singapore, where he worked with 14-, 12-, 10- and 8-under teams while helping grow the sport in Southeast Asia. The year before that he was a player and coach in Germany for the Fussen Royal Bavarians, who went 22-6 and finished second in their league with Phillips leading it in stolen bases and finishing second in doubles and third in on-base percentage. At Covenant he played in 122 games and hit .280 with 71 runs scored, 45 batted in and a school-record 36 times hit by pitch. He batted .302 with an on-base percentage of .473 and 15 steals as a senior in 2014, when the Scots won the USA South regular season and went to the NCAA Division III tournament. "I'm really excited that Paul has decided to come be a part of our staff," Simons said in a release. "His energy, passion and work ethic will be a tremendous asset to our program. Most of all, Coach Phillips is a follower of Christ who is familiar with our culture and is dedicated to our vision and philosophy as a program."
Golf
* The two-time defending champion Dalton State men's golf team was picked to finish second in the Southern States Athletic Conference to past NAIA champion Coastal Georgia in 2016-17. The Mariners got eight first-place votes and 98 points in the coaches' voting, while DSC's Roadrunners got two firsts and 92 points. Faulkner was third in the 10-team projections with 75. Dalton State coach Ben Rickett no longer has 2015 NAIA medalist Sean Elliott and three other past leaders, but he has senior Austin Hughes, junior Dalton Johnson and sophomore Adam Morris returning, joined by junior college transfers Chase Cole and PJ Shields plus talented freshmen Sport Allmond and Ben Rebne from Heritage and S.M. Lee from Buford.