Lee University’s Clair Lanter earns major NAIA award

Clair Lanter

Lee University soccer defender Clair Lanter from Soddy-Daisy is this year’s female recipient of the A.O. Duer Award as the top all-around junior student-athlete in the NAIA. The male winner is basketball player and biology/pre-medicine major Shawn Kiezer of Dordt College in Iowa. Duer served 26 years as executive secretary of the NAIA and was an outspoken proponent of the need to promote balance between athletics and academics. Duer Award candidates must have grade point averages of at least 3.75 on a 4.0 scale along with strong credentials in their sports. Lanter, a political science major and tutor and an academic All-American, was nominated by the Southern States Athletic Conference. A three-year starter and captain for the program that has won the last four NAIA national titles, Lanter currently is on a mission trip in South Africa, working in AIDS orphanages. She helps year-round with the Austin Hatcher Foundation for pediatric cancer, and she has participated in a Model United Nations program. “She is a woman who cares about others and the world around her,” Stephen M. Swindle, a Lee associate professor, said in the NAIA’s release. “She sees her intellectual growth as a tool she can use to make the world a better place.”

• KNOXVILLE — Irvin Espinal scored at the 57-minute mark to give the Chattanooga Football Club a 1-0 win over the Knoxville Force on Saturday night. That made the CFC’s record 1-1, avening a home loss to the Force a week earlier.

Tennis

• BOISE, Idaho — Chattanooga’s Wes Cash teamed with Mark Vines from Lynchburg, Va., to win the USTA 55-over men’s doubles national indoor championship Saturday at the Boise Racquet & Swim Club. They were seeded No. 1 and beat second-seeded Kenny House of Wilmington, N.C., and Jeff Winkler of St. Petersburg, Fla., 6-4, 6-2. Cash and Vines beat Keith Belcher of Gray, Ga., and Pete Kelly of Palm Springs, Calif., 6-1, 6-0 in the round of 16 and then downed Scott Shepherd of Stevenson, Ala., and Stuart Chase of Virginia 7-6, 6-3 in their closest match. Cash and Vines won 6-4, 6-2 in their semifinal against Rob Knox of Richland, Wash., and Wayne Pickard of Portland, Ore.

General