Normalcy returned to District 5-AAA baseball Wednesday.
EVENSVILLE, Tenn. — Soddy-Daisy didn't have a lot more hits than Rhea County in their winners-bracket semifinal Tuesday in the District 5-AAA high school softball tournament. But the Lady Trojans definitely had more at the right times.
ATHENS, Tenn. — Despite his boys' team's undefeated run through the District 5-AAA regular season and solid positioning after the first day of the individual district tournament, Ooltewah tennis coach Ken Buchanan refused to let the Owls feel as though they've won anything.
Chattanooga State will not be repeating as NJCAA national softball champion, but Lady Tigers sophomore Lacye Walker from Grace Academy was the 2013 TCCAA most valuable player after the team's third-place league finish.
ATHENS, Tenn. — The Soddy-Daisy girls' tennis team has been on the cusp of winning an outright district championship before, as last season the Lady Trojans fell just short.
It would be the equivalent of a football team practicing tackling drills on asphalt or a basketball player using a gravel parking lot to work on his ball-handling.
* Liana Rodrigues, Arts & Sciences: A sixth-inning walk prevented her from pitching a perfect game against Boyd-Buchanan and she had 14 strikeouts for the Lady Patriots, who won 3-0 to move to 8-0 in District 5-A. They won the first district regular-season softball title in school history.
Carson-Newman University center Kevin Day from Soddy-Daisy High School followed up a host of honors from his senior football season by being named the school's overall male athlete of the year.
In the stroke of a single day, Bledsoe County went from being in position for its first district baseball championship in more than two decades to hosting a District 7-AA playoff game Thursday afternoon.
• Hannah Morrison, Marion County: She hit a home run in a 5-1 softball defeat of Whitwell.
Although each sighed in relief as they wore first-place medals around their necks at the end of the day, the stress level it took to claim them couldn't have been more different for GPS's Destinee Lansden and Arts & Sciences' Garrett Tumlin.
* Thatcher Smith, Boyd-Buchanan: He was 4-for-5 with two RBIs in the Bucs' 8-7 baseball win over Silverdale.
Central catcher Ryan Poole is headed to Sewanee, but made it clear that he's going for the academics rather than the baseball.
• Preston Reavis, Sale Creek: He hit a home run and knocked in three runs during the Panthers' 15-1 baseball win over Van Buren County
Chattanooga Christian high school principal and soccer coach Shawn Brower recently announced his resignation, effective at the end of the season.
