Top-seeded Wesley Cash of Chattanooga and Mark Vines of Naples, Fla., won 6-2, 6-2 Thursday in reaching their 13th consecutive doubles final when paired in a USTA national or a world tennis tournament. They won the first eight of those and try for their ninth major title together today in the Men's 60 grass court event in Pontiac, Mich., against Chris Bussert of Decatur, Ga., and Rollin Rhone of Los Angeles. Those two, seeded fifth, required a third-set tiebreaker to win their semifinal against the No. 3 seeds. In singles, No. 1 seed Vines won his quarterfinal 6-3, 6-1, but Cash, a 5 seed, lost 6-1, 6-1 to third seed Maxime Buyckx of Marietta, Ga.
* The 2017 Southern Cup junior tournament runs today through Sunday in Chattanooga, using courts at the Champions Club and Baylor School. Each Southern state will be represented by three boys and three girls in 14-, 16- and 18-under age groups.
Skeet Shooting
* Soddy-Daisy High School graduate Eli Christman, now a Martin Methodist freshman, and his two United States teammates earned the bronze medal in the international skeet junior world meet last week in Moscow, Russia. The ISSF World Championships for Shotgun included more than 640 athletes from 76 countries, and Christman, Nic Moschetti of Colorado and Eli Ellis of Texas competed against teenagers from China, Italy, France and Peru. In five-round scoring for 125 targets (25 per round), Moschetti hit 116, Ellis 115 and Christman 114 for their collective third-place finish. Moschetti hit 25 of 25 in the last round.
Volleyball
* The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga volleyball team began play in Missouri State's tournament Thursday night with a 3-0 loss to the 7-3 host team in Springfield, Mo. The set scores were 25-18, 25-12, 25-18. Ally Ford had 13 kills and Lauren Greenspoon set 24 assists for UTC (7-5), while Megan Kaufman led in digs with 14.
* Marjorie Smith and Maura Emert had seven kills apiece as Tennessee Wesleyan's volleyball team defeated visiting Fisk 3-1 (25-16, 25-20, 19-25, 27-25) on Thursday. Gabi Catt and Tia Madden had 18 and 14 assists, Elizabeth Houk and Kailyn Lillie had 12 and 10 digs and Olivia Fisher served four aces for TWU (4-8).
* The River City Rumble high school volleyball tournament will take place today and Saturday. Four courts will be in use at Soddy-Daisy and one at Baylor as 32 teams vie for titles. Pool play starts today on each court at 4 p.m., with the day's last matches scheduled at 9. All the varsity matches Saturday will be at Soddy-Daisy, starting with seeded pool play at 9 a.m. Based on performance, teams will be divided into Gold and Silver divisions for single-elimination play set to start at 3. Both finals are scheduled at 6.
Running
* Lee University's Christian Noble was chosen the Gulf South Conference men's runner of the week for last weekend, and teammate Caleb Eagleson was the freshman of the week. Noble came within 0.3 second of the Flames' 8-kilometer record with his 12th-place 24:26.00 finish in the Furman Classic, where Eagleson was 24th in his first 8k race. The Flames are 14th and the Lady Flames 19th in the latest NCAA Division II polls released by the U.S. Track & Field Cross Country Coaches Association. The Lady Flames were 25th last week. The Lee teams run this Saturday in the Stegemoller Classic in Evansville, Ind., where the competition will include four Division I schools as well as Division II programs ranked fifth, ninth, 13th, 15th, 22nd and 25th.
* Former Walker Valley High School wrestling captain Dillon Clark has joined Cleveland State's first-year cross country program. "Since Dillon comes from a wrestling background, I don't have to worry about his effort or mentality," Cougars coach David Kyle said in a Cleveland State release. "You can tell he really wants to be here and is excited to get started." In addition to giving the Cougars a full men's squad, Clark adds "a sense of competition within our own team" and "brings experience in the weight room, which will most definitely impact our team in a positive way," Kyle added. Said Clark: "I want to make sure we leave a lasting impression at Cleveland State and grow cross country into a successful program here."