Sewanee tennis All-American Lindsey Liles received Wednesday one of the NCAA Elite 89 awards for the 2014-15 school year. Those go to the individual with the highest cumulative grade point average participating in each of the association's 89 national championships. Liles is competing in singles and doubles in the Division III national individual tournament with Chattanoogan and teammate Bronte Goodhue, the Southern Athletic Association woman of the year, and they earned All-America status again by beating Rebecca Ho and Jamie Silverberg of Washington University (St. Louis) 6-2, 6-2 in the doubles round of 16 Thursday. Both Sewanee players lost in the round of 32 in singles.
Golf
* Touring pro Garrett Willis of Loudon won the Tennessee State Open golf tournament for the third time Thursday with a 54-hole 205 at The Club at Fairvue Plantation at Gallatin. Willis had a three-stroke lead going into the final round after a 62 on Wednesday, and he won by two over renowned amateur Tim Jackson of Germantown despite a triple bogey on No. 10. That put him in a tie with Jackson, but Willis birdied the next hole and followed a double bogey on No. 15 with three consecutive birdies. University of Tennessee at Chattanooga golfer Wes Gosselin from Knoxville was in a four-way tie for fourth at 209, one behind UT-Martin player Hunter Richardson of Clarksville. Signal Mountain's Mikey Feher tied for 25th at 218.
* Dalton State's Sean Elliott shot a 7-under-par 65 in the third round of the NAIA men's golf tournament Thursday at Daytona Beach, Fla., and leads all individuals by six strokes with his 14-under 202 at LPGA International. He had nine birdies and his two bogeys. With Levi Nix tied for 27th at 219, the Roadrunners are 12th in the team standings, one spot and three strokes ahead of Tennessee Wesleyan, which has Evan Ball in fourth place at 211. Defending champion Coastal Georgia is at 854 with a 16-stroke lead over the second-place team, and Heritage High School graduate Hunter Cornelius is tied for eighth at 215 with Coastal teammate Alastair Tidcombe second at 208.
* Sewanee junior Emily Javadi from Chattanooga is a Women's Golf Coaches Association second-team All-American after finishing 12th in the NCAA Division III national tournament last week. She made the Great Lakes Region first team. She earlier earned All-SAA first-team status for the third time.
Baseball
* Lee University improved to 3-0 in pool play in the National Christian College Athletic Association baseball tournament at Mason, Ohio, with a 6-0 win Thursday against Oakland City, guaranteeing the second-seeded Flames a spot in today's semifinals. They trounced Oklahoma Christian 13-3 in their final pool game Thursday night. Logan Campbell pitched a four-hitter against the Indiana team, and Luke Toms was 3-for-4 with a two-run home run and three runs scored. Nathan Wierzgac doubled in a run and singled, and Chris Adams tripled and scored in that game for Lee (38-18-1). Toms homered again and had three RBIs and three runs, while Zack Zyburt was 3-for-4 and M.J. Brown was 3-for-5 with two RBIs. Trenton Hill also had two RBIs and Andres Nelo had two hits and scored three runs.
Academics
* Eight UTC teams -- the most ever for the school -- earned 2015 APR Public Recognition Awards, the NCAA announced Thursday, for ranking in the top 10 percent of their sports' Academic Progress Rate scores in Division I. The scores include academic and student-retention information from the 2010-11 through 2013-14 school years. The men's golf team earned the award for the fourth year in a row, and men's cross country made it three in a row. They were joined by men's and women's indoor and outdoor track and field and women's cross country and tennis. That announcement comes on the heels of UTC's school-record athletes' aggregate grade point average of 3.11 for the spring semester, with 12 Mocs teams having 3.0 or better GPAs for the fourth semester in a row.
Auto Racing
* Boyd's Speedway is set to host a race tonight in the Old Man's Garage Spring Nationals Series by Schaeffer's Oil. That will be a 40-lap event with $4,000 going to the winner. The series will host another 40/$4,000 race Saturday night at Dixie Speedway in Woodstock, Ga., and a 50-lapper with $5,000 to win Sunday night at Rome Speedway. The Boyd's schedule tonight also includes Super Late Models, Crate/Limited Late Models and B-Hobby.
Basketball
* Georgia Northwestern Technical College men's basketball coach David Stephenson recently signed Gordon Central's Jake Ross, another area sharpshooter like earlier signee Alex Viars from North Murray. Stephenson noted that Alex Miller, the Bobcats' all-time leading scorer, also came from Gordon Central, and he praised Warriors coach Ray Tucker for his sound teaching and "up front" help. Tucker said the 6-foot Ross is "very quick and a tenacious defender. He's also a very good 3-point shooter, and I think his offense and defense will make him a good player for them."