Neal Young is coming from Goshen College in Indiana to be the third men's basketball coach in three years for Covenant College, which had winning seasons the last two. His hiring was announced Monday by Covenant athletic director Tim Sceggel. Young was the head coach the past four years at Goshen, an NAIA Division II school where he also served as associate athletic director for compliance. The 2015-16 Maple Leafs went 19-13 overall and 10-8 in the Crossroads League for only the second double-digit win total in the program's 48-year league history. Last year's Goshen team knocked off No. 1-ranked University of St. Francis. "Neal's name quickly rose to the top of our (national) search due to his proven ability as a head coach in discipleship, recruiting and pursuing excellence on the court," Sceggel said in a release. "His advanced experience integrating his faith into his coaching was particularly compelling." Young, who played at Anderson University in Indiana, said the Scots are "in a great spot and I know that I will be standing on the shoulders of former coaches Kyle Taylor and Arte Culver, who have done a great job in setting our current team up for success."
Softball
* Former Soddy-Daisy and Kentucky pitching star Kelsey Nunley is headed to the Netherlands and Italy for six weeks to play for the Busselengo, Italy, softball team. That is after she pitched the first three innings with two hits and one run allowed in the Florida-based USSAA Pride's 5-2 loss to the Houston Scrap Yard Dawgs in the National Pro Fastpitch championship series finale Sunday in Baton Rouge, La. The Dawgs scored two runs each in the sixth and seventh. They won the best-of-three series for the Cowles Cup behind championship MVP Monica Abbott, the former Tennessee ace who holds four NCAA career records and the single-season strikeouts standard. Abbott pitched all 14 innings for her team in Sunday's two wins, with 14 strikeouts and five hits allowed in the 2-0 first game and 11 strikeouts and four hits in the final. Nunley started the Pride's 3-1 Friday defeat of the Chicago Bandits that got them into the weekend finals. In that game she did not allow a hit until a leadoff double in the sixth inning, after which she gave way to a reliever who promptly gave up a tying triple.
Auto Racing
* It was Heads-Up Weekend for drag races Saturday at Brainerd Motorsports Park, and Amy Farrow was the 48-entry Super Pro winner in a Chevrolet dragster prepared by her husband Steve. She won $3,000 with a 5.12-second run on a 5.12 dial. Russell Nece of Northport, Ala., was second with a 5.28 run on a 5.28 dial in a 1969 Camaro SS. Other winners were Bruce Sexton in the 5.30 class, Dewayne Teague in 6.00, Spencer Smith in 7.00 and Charles McRae in Foot Brake; the respective runners-up were Rick Millard, Jim Brackett, Wayne Stover and David Bigham. First-year driver Drew Brown of Chickamauga won the 18-entry Junior Dragster class with Kat Cross of Cleveland second.
Volleyball
* Former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga volleyball standout Lauren Gainer has joined the program's staff in the volunteer role of director of student-athlete development, head coach Travis Filar announced Monday. The 2016 UTC graduate recently completed work on her master's degree at North Florida, where she played on the beach volleyball team. "When I found out Lauren was moving back to Chattanooga, I wanted to try and see if we could add her to our staff," Filar said in a school release. "I know our program will benefit immensely from having her back. ... She was part of our first full recruiting class and was essentially a four-year captain from a leadership standpoint." Gainer was on the 2015 team that won the Southern Conference regular-season title.