A Chattanooga 55-and-over 4.0 men's tennis team overcame an injury to win the state championship this past weekend in Knoxville and moves on to the USTA Southern Sectionals in mid-September in Asheville, N.C. Comprising the champions are captain David Snyder, Raymond Rich, Rick Lovelady, Glen Wagner, Randy Ball, Pat Farnsley, Turney Thompson, Tony Bartley, Ken Ellinger, Tony Hicks, Bob Taylor, Mark Vice and Dan Barry. All three doubles in the deciding match Sunday morning against Memphis went to third-set tiebreaks, and the last of those to finish, after the others split, involved Farnsley and Rich. But Farnsley fell just before the start of the third set and pulled his hamstring. "We thought he wouldn't be able to finish the match and would have to quit and give Memphis the win," Snyder related, "but after an injury timeout and some bandage work he limped around. and with his partner's help they finished it out and gave us the title."
Auto Racing
* Jeremiah Powell from Trenton, Ga., won the Super Pro class and $2,000 Saturday night at the Brainerd Optimist Drag Strip. The 30-year-old mechanic won with a 5.23-second run on a 5.23 dial in a 505-cubic-inch Chevrolet dragster built by his father, Rocky Powell, a former strip champion. Chase Rampy of Piedmont, Ala., son of NHRA world champion David Rampy, was the Pro Class runner-up. Barry Davis of Piedmont, the Rampys' crew chief, won the Foot Brake class with a 6.46 run on a 6.46 dial in a 1991 Camaro. Russ Hood of Jasper won the 530 Heads Up class, Randy Womack of Cartersville won in 600 Heads Up, Jerry Bryant of Ringgold won in 700 Heads Up, and Steve Babcock of Rock Spring had the low elapsed time (4.90 seconds) and top speed (145.90 mph) of the meet. LaFayette residents Bryson Kaiser and Shelby Whittle were first and second in Junior Dragster.
Volleyball
* The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga volleyball schedule for 2016 will include four matches against "Power 5" conferences, including Northwestern in the Dayton (Ohio) Invitational Sept. 2-3 and Kansas and TCU in the Creighton Invitational a week later. And the hosts of those events won their conference tournaments last fall. "The awesome thing about being at both those places is we will be playing the host team on the Saturday night match of each tournament," UTC coach Travis Filar said ina release. His Mocs went 26-6 and 13-3 in the Southern Conference and won the regular-season title for the first time since 1998. They will host the Chattanooga Classic Aug. 26-28 and the Scenic City Showdown Sept. 16-17 with Ole Miss as well as Appalachian State and Tennessee State.
Golf
* Chattanooga pros Richard Rebne and Gibby Gilbert III will start competition Thursday in the 77th Senior PGA Championship at the Harbor Shores course in Benton Harbor, Mich. The 156-player field is headed by Bernhard Langer and two-time defending champion Colin Montgomerie. Rebne is the head professional at Council Fire. Gilbert, from Ooltewah, recently shared the Senior State Open championship at Stonehenge in Fairfield Glade. The tournament will be televised by Golf Channel the first two days, by NBC on Saturday and Sunday.
Soccer
* The Hixson-based Nomads won the Tennessee State Soccer Associaion Division 3 under-14 girls' state championship this past weekend in Franklin with a 2-0 victory over Middle Valley in the final. Before that the Nomads, coached by J.D. Kyzer with assistance from Mark Bishop and Mike Boley, defeated a Lebanon team 4-0, tied Upper Cumberland 0-0 and beat the Tennessee Soccer Club from Franklin 4-1. The age group included 11 teams, and the Nomads had only 13 players available: Lauren Bird, Mollie Bishop, Alyssa Boley, Anna Boley, Riley Craig, Alexis Holland, Emily Karnes, Kiera Kyzer, Sydney Locke, Alexandra Magill, Sophia Miller, Phoebe Moran and keeper Alyssa Karnes.