Former Cleveland State and Tennessee Tech pitcher Stephen Pryor, an offseason Chattanooga resident, made his major league debut Saturday for the Seattle Mariners in Chicago, and he got four outs spoiled only by a solo home run. He hit 100 mph with his first and last pitches. Pryor entered with two outs in the seventh inning and struck out White Sox slugger and .366 hitter Paul Konerko with two runners on base. The Mariners scored three runs in the top of the eighth for a one-run lead, and Pryor got another strikeout and a groundout before Dayan Viciedo tied the score with a two-strike homer. The next batter grounded out. The one run may have cost Pryor a win, since the game went 12 innings before Seattle won 10-8. Pryor began the season in Class AA at Jackson, Tenn., and was lights-out in his promotion to Triple-A Tacoma, pitching 12 innings in nine appearances and allowing five hits and no runs while striking out 15.
• Bryan College seniors Steven Brown from Cleveland, Tenn., and Jordan Day from Summerville, Ga., and Lee University senior pitchers David Eskew from Cleveland and James Rechenbach from Knoxville were among the 2012 Daktronics-NAIA Baseball Scholar-Athletes announced this past week. Honorees must be at least juniors in academic standing and have cumulative GPAs of at least 3.5 on a 4.0 scale.
Golf
• Defending champion Kendall Martindale from Jefferson City will lead the golfers vying for the 2012 Tennessee Women’s Amateur Championship and the Scott L. Probasco Trophy this week at Foxland Harbor Golf and Country Club in Gallatin. The tournament starts Monday. Martindale, also the 2009 winner and the 2011 State Women’s Open champion, just finished her freshman year at Vanderbilt. Commodores teammate Lauren Stratton of Spring Hill could be a top challenger.
• Middle Tennessee State senior Hunter Green from Evensville, Tenn., ended his NCAA career as a Division I PING all-region golfer, as chosen by the Golf Coaches Association of America. He had two tournament wins, six top-10 finishes and the Sun Belt Conference’s best stroke average, 72.2, as a senior. He shot under par in 16 of his 31 rounds this year and wound up third all-time in Blue Raiders history with five career tournament titles.
Running
• Chris Berry, who just concluded a five-year University of Tennessee at Chattanooga running career, has been named to the Capital One Cross Country/Track Academic all-district first team, making him a nominee for Academic All-America. Berry, who already has two degrees from UTC, finished 17th in the 10,000-meter run in the recent NCAA East Region track and field meet after making the Division I cross country national race last fall. He was All-Southern Conference four times and all-region twice in cross country and earned 11 all-conference honors and four SoCon event championships in indoor and outdoor track. He holds UTC’s 10,000-meter record.