Lee University won the Southern States Athletic Conference Commissioner’s Cup for the third year in a row and sixth time in seven years. The Cleveland school, which will be leaving the SSAC and the NAIA after one more year, won league tournament championships in five sports during the 2011-12 school year and had two tournament runners-up to go with one regular-season conference champion, one regular-season runner-up, three East Division champions and an East runner-up. Nine sports produced that ledger. The soccer Lady Flames won the regular-season and SSAC tournament titles on the way to their fourth consecutive NAIA national championship, and the volleyball team was an East champ and matched women’s soccer, baseball and men’s and women’s golf as SSAC tourney champs. Lee’s other East titles were in women’s basketball and softball. “One of the things I’m most proud of is how well-rounded our athletic department is,” athletic director Larry Carpenter said in a school release. “Winning the SSAC Commissioner’s Cup isn’t about one or two teams but the efforts of all our coaches and student-athletes. I am blessed with what I feel is the best coaching staff in the country — one that not only is good at what they do but understands our mission.”
• The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga recently has added three staff members to its athletic department: Caleb Whitted as director of the UTC Mocs Club, Brent McMillian as assistant ticket manager and Tyler Brown as athletics communications assistant. Whitted comes to UTC from Ball State University, where he was an athletic development doctoral assistant with a focus on the Cardinal Varsity Club. McMillian takes over for Geoff Wilcox, who was promoted to ticket manager. McMillian was a graduate assistant for event management at Old Dominion while earning an M.B.A., and he worked for the Asheville Tourists minor league baseball team under former UTC ticket manager Brian DeWine, who now is president of the Class A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. Brown, beginning his senior year, served as editor of The Echo school newspaper and for three years as a student worker in the athletics communications office.
Soccer
• MADISON, Ala. — Luke Winter delivered his second hat trick of the season for the Chattanooga Football Club on Friday night, scoring all three CFC goals in a 3-2 victory over Rocket City United at Madison City Schools Stadium. The win earned CFC (3-1-2) three more points and kept the team in first place in the National Premier Soccer League Southeast Conference’s Western division with three games remaining. Chattanooga FC will host the Mississippi Storm tonight in its Finley Stadium finale. Winter, who also scored three goals against the Myrtle Beach Mutiny on June 9, put CFC scored in the 11th minute and added a free-kick goal in the 25th. Rocket City (1-4-1) scored in the second half before his third goal.
Track & Field