Chattanooga State’s nationally sixth-ranked softball team is headed to the NJCAA Division I tournament at St. George, Utah, after defeating Columbia State 10-0 for the TCCAA/Region VII tournament championship Sunday at Gallatin, Tenn. Pitchers Shelby Willard and Sharlene Godoy combined on a shutout, and Godoy was MVP of the tournament. Joining Godoy on the all-tournament team were teammates Sydney Sloan, Baylee Williams, Courtney Crawford and Lyndsey Stickrod. On Sunday, the Lady Tigers jumped to an early lead, scoring five runs in the first inning. Elyse Ferguson led the offense for Chattanooga State, going 2-for-4, with a three-run home run, and Khadija Neely also hit a home run. Sloan went 2-for-4 with an RBI, and Izzy McCurry knocked in a run with a pinch-hit single.
Tennis
• Chattanooga tennis pro Wesley Cash and Mark Vines of Lynchburg, Va., the second seeds, lost 6-4, 6-4 to fellow USA team members Michael Tammen and Daniel Waldman in the men’s 55 doubles final of the ITF Seniors Individual World Championships on Sunday at Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Cash and Vines won the title last year by defeating Tammen and Waldman, the fourth-seeded duo who earlier Sunday beat top seeds Glenn Busby and Paul Smith of Australia.
Volleyball
• Assistant head coach Kevin Hudson has decided to step away from officially helping his wife, Andrea, with the Lee University volleyball program that she has headed for 23 years. He has been her assistant for 22 years, but he also is the school’s director of recreation and intramurals and wants to give more focus to that job — “and helping develop the students in that program, along with more time on the home front,” he said in the announcement release. “There are a lot of reasons for the move, both professional and personal, but the decision is really about personal things that I want to devote more attention to.” Said Andrea Hudson, who has 750 wins: “I can’t imagine what coaching without Kevin beside me on the bench is going to feel like. … I really had only 19 wins, and then Kevin came along. All the 731 wins [against 231 losses] belong to us and the teams we coached.” Kevin, the NAIA’s national assistant of the year in 2009, said he won’t be pulling entirely away. “For the immediate future I plan on helping with the transition in the coaching staff and still supporting the program. I’m not leaving Lee.”