No. 2 seed Dalton State won the Southern States Athletic Conference men’s basketball tournament Saturday night in Montgomery, Ala., with a 90-80 defeat of top-seeded William Carey. Both already were set for the 80th NAIA Division I tournament March 15-21 in Kansas City, Mo. DSC is 27-4 and ranked third in NAIA Division I. Sayvon Williams was voted the SSAC tournament MVP after scoring 22 points on 8-of-10 shooting from the field and adding nine rebounds for the Roadrunners, and Isaiah Box had 20 points on 6-of-11 3-point shooting and seven assists and all-tournament Carnilious Simmons scored 19 points. Mike Harden contributed 14 points and five assists. The Roadrunners hit 23 of 32 free throws compared to 7 of 11 for the Crusaders, who got 20 points, 11 rebounds, four assists and three steals from Jaylen Moore.
* No. 2 seed Valdosta State held off third seed Lee University, 64-61, in the Gulf South Conference women’s basketball semifinals Saturday in Birmingham, Ala. That was VSU’s third close win in three meetings with the Lady Flames this season. Erin Walsh, Lindsey Roddy and Abby Bertram scored 11 points apiece and Carrie Cheeks and Haley Cornellison added 10 each for Lee (20-10), Walsh with four steals and Roddy with four assists. For the Lady Blazers (21-9), Sonya Franklin scored 17 points and Kenya Samone’ Dixon had 16 plus 12 rebounds.
* The TCCAA/NJCAA Region VII basketball tournament opens Monday at Walters State in Morristown, Tenn., with Chattanooga State’s women playing at 2 p.m. against Volunteer State, Cleveland State’s Lady Cougars facing Columbia State at 4 and the Cleveland State men taking on Dyersburg State at 8. The women’s winners will play again Tuesday against the top two seeds, Walters and Motlow. Chattanooga State’s men start Wednesday at 8 p.m. against Southwest Tennessee in a quarterfinal.
* Freshman forward Maddie Wright from Boyd-Buchanan played eight minutes and had five rebounds with two points in Belmont University’s 94-64 win over Eastern Kentucky in the Ohio Valley Conference women’s final Saturday in Nashville. The Bruins are 27-5. EKU senior Mariah Massengill from Silverdale Baptist Academy ended her career with 16 points and four assists after providing 11 points and five assists in the quarterfinal defeat of Morehead State and 10 points and four assists in the semifinal win over SIU-Edwardsville.
* The Chattanooga Quarterback Club will not meet this Monday but will resume its noon luncheon meetings on March 13 with Times Free Press columnist Mark Wiedmer talking about NCAA basketball.