Lee University track and field All-American Josiah Brooks and all-region volleyball libero MaKayla Beebe will be honored Thursday night at the Gulf South Conference’s annual awards banquet in Pensacola Beach, Florida, as GSC Top Ten student-athletes for athletic, academic and extracurricular achievement. This is Brooks’ second year in a row and a Lee athlete’s fourth consecutive time among the top five males and a Lady Flames representative for the third straight year. One male and one female from the list will get the Commissioner’s Award, the league’s top honor, as Lee soccer player Summer Lanter did last year.
Baseball
» Top-seeded Tennessee Wesleyan finally lost in the 2019 Avista NAIA World Series in Lewiston, Idaho – 8-6 to No. 2 seed Science & Arts of Oklahoma in a game that ended about 12:40 a.m. EDT Thursday. That left three teams with one loss in the double-elimination tournament: TWU’s Bulldogs (55-10), USAO (49-11) and sixth seed St. Thomas, which eliminated fifth seed Georgia Gwinnett 4-1. Braden Mosley was 2-for-5 with two RBIs for Wesleyan but hit into an inning-ending forceout with the bases loaded and USAO ahead 8-6 in the top of the eighth. Bryce Giles was 3-for-4 with an RBI and two runs scored, Tyler Reichenborn tripled and singled and scored twice and Shamoy Christopher likewise was 2-for-5. The Bulldogs trailed 5-0 after three innings but scored a run in the fourth, another in the fifth and three in the seventh to tie, but USAO answered with three of its own in the bottom half. Wednesday, Mosley was listed as a Daktronics NAIA Scholar-Athlete for 2019 along with Bryan College’s Jonathan Hostetler, Kurt Meeberg, Tucker Cain, Nic Bennett, Cullen Roysten and Ernest Romero. That requires at least junior academic status and a cumulative grade point average of 3.5.
» Sewanee senior Riley Brandvold was named this week by the American Baseball Coaches Association to the ABCA/Rawlings NCAA Division III South all-region third team for 2019. Helping the Tigers post the most wins in a season in program history, Brandvold had a .318 batting average with 50 hits in 40 games, eight home runs, 13 doubles, 31 RBIs and a 15-game hitting streak.
Soccer
» Midfielder Ali Schroeder from Salem, Ohio, is the latest addition to the Lee women’s soccer program that reached the NCAA Division II national semifinals last fall. The 5-foot-7 Schroeder was part of three league championships at West Branch High School, serving as team captain as a junior and bypassing her senior season to focus on club play with two-time state semifinalist Internationals SC. She also was a National Honor Society member. “She brings a lot of qualities as well as a lot of experience, having played at a high level for the past few years,” coach Chris Hennessey said in a Lee release. “Ali will help bolster our midfield and give us flexibility within the team.”
» The USA Southeast under-17 girls’ team from the Chattanooga area will play for their age group’s TSSA Division 2 state championship against the Memphis area’s Lady Lobos Rush Elite at 2:30 p.m. EDT Saturday at the Richard Siegel Soccer Complex in Murfreesboro. The winner goes to the Presidents Cup in Austin, Texas. This past weekend USA Southeast won two tough matches. Coach Josh Crispin’s girls edged a Murfreesboro team on penalty kicks after two regulation-time goals by Asher Smith sandwiching a header score by Katie Wade on a Sarah Moser corner kick. Moser and Jadra Martinez Rodriguez netted PKs while goalkeeper Kaitlyn Pope was saving two. Then in the state semifinal Pope was brilliant, Emma Marshall also shone defensively and Smith scored from an Emma Vinson assist for a 1-0 win over Knoxville Emerald Force Chivas. Sidney Starr joins Martinez Rodriguez as Walker Valley High School players on USA Southeast.