Chattanooga men's fastpitch star Bobby McDaniel dies

Arkansas-SEMO Live Blog

Chattanooga men's fastpitch softball pitching legend Bobby McDaniel died Sunday after a long illness. McDaniel, who worked for Combustion Engineering for 43 years, recorded 561 wins and 92 no-hitters and was named All-World twice in his 25-year fastpitch career. He pitched in 15 state tournaments, 16 regionals and two nationals. He was inducted into the Greater Chattanooga Sports Hall of Fame in 1989 and the Tennessee Hall of Fame in 2009. His funeral service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at New Salem Baptist Church, where he served many years as a deacon. Visitation times are set for 1-3 p.m. and 4-8 p.m. Friday at Legacy Funeral Home & Cremation Center in Soddy-Daisy and Saturday at the church in the hour before the service.

Golf

• Former McCallie School golfer Adam Mitchell led an area trio at the Web.com Tour Qualifying Finals on Tuesday at PGA West in La Quinta, Calif. Mitchell tied for 73rd at 8 under par in the event won by Zack Fischer, who shot 31 under. Former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga golfer Steven Fox tied for 88th at 5 under. Dalton resident Matt Hughes, who played at Alabama, tied for 136th at 6 over. All three will begin 2014 with conditional status on the Web.com Tour.

Basketball

• For the second week in a row, a Tennessee Wesleyan College basketball player is a Tennessee Sports Writers Association player of the week. This time it is Armeka Booker as the women's honoree, following Devante' Jenkins with the men's honor. Booker had 26 points and 12 rebounds against nationally 13th-ranked Talladega College. That was her third consecutive double-double and her sixth 20-plus game of the season. She's averaging 21.6 points and 12 rebounds a game.

• Middle Tennessee State's Shawn Jones, the TSWA men's player of the week, had 11 points as one of six Blue Raiders scoring in double figures in a 102-52 defeat of visiting Tennessee Temple on Tuesday. Reggie Upshaw from Baylor School led MTSU (8-3) with 18 points, eight rebounds and 25 minuets played. Rashaud Bell scored 10 points and Jarrett Smith had six assists with eight points for Temple (7-4).

• Dalton State improved to 12-1 in its first season as a four-year basketball program with a 79-58 win Tuesday night against Southern Wesleyan at the Northwest Georgia Trade and Convention Center. The Roadrunners were accepted last week into the NAIA's Southern States Athletic Conference, starting next school year.

• Covenant College forward Colton McGriff repeated as the USA South men's basketball player of the week after averaging 19.5 points, 13.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists in the Scots' most recent two games. The junior from Birmingham had 26 points, 13 rebounds, three assists and two steals in a 94-90 win over Berry.

Tennis

• Baylor School sixth-grader Anna Hawkins won the 12-year-old girls' division in the Kentucky Junior Indoor Open tennis tournament this past weekend in Louisville, Ky. It is a Southern Level 3 event with six states represented. Hawkins rallied from down 6-2, 5-0, 40-love to beat third-seeded Sophia Shiben from Paducah, Ky., in an 11-9 third-set tiebreaker in the first round. She later topped No. 2 seed Emma Karcher from Mountain Brook, Ala., and in the final won 0-6, 6-4, 10-7 over No. 4 seed Whitley Pate of Winston-Salem, N.C.

Academics

• The 329 athletes on the Fall 2013 Academic All-Southern Conference team included 28 from UTC, and UTC soccer players Skylar Brewer and Clare Latham and cross country runner Patrick O'Brien were among the record 20 SoCon athletes with 4.0 cumulative averages. The other UTC fall-sports honorees were runners Mark Cole, Lucas Cotter, Zach Darby, John Gilpin, Trevor Janssen, Matthew Marshall, Paul Stuart, Rebecca Greenwall, Teghan Henderson and Keeley Stewart; football players C.J. Murrell, Kevin Neithammer, Nick Pollard, Beau Simmons and Davis Tull; volleyball players Julimar Alvarado, Catherine Chason, Lauren Gainer and Sarah Batterton; and soccer players Andria Aurand, Sarah Ghale, Crystal Mackezyk, Taylor Mangrum, Loryn Queen and Lauren Thomas. Western Carolina soccer player Kelly Pannell from Baylor School and Samford runner Lucas Sieb from Scottsboro, Ala., also made the list.

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