The Georgia Northwestern Technical College men’s golf team finished third Friday out of 13 schools in the NJCAA Division III tournament at Chautauqua Golf Club in western New York, and Bobcats freshmen Jordan Estes and Chase Cole were third and fourth individually at 296 and 299 and were among six 2015 All-Americans. The Bobcats shot their third consecutive collective 303 after an opening 308 and wound up 18 strokes behind winner Cincinnati State, which overtook defending champion Sandhills Community College from North Carolina on the final day and won by two. Fourth-place Minnesota State Tech was 29 shots behind GNTC. Cole shot a 75 and Estes a 76 in the fourth round, when sophomore Drew Tankersley led the Roadrunners with a 73, and teammates Lanier Guest and Grant Allen closed with 79s. Guest’s 311 total was one too much for All-American honorable mention; Tankersley was next for GNTC at 316. “There were a lot of positives,” Bobcats coach Jared Willerson said, despite admitting that “deep in all our hearts we felt we were as good as the team that won.” He said his team would be “coming loaded for bear next year.”
* Henrik Simonsen, head professional at The Honors Course, is one of 42 entrants in a U.S. Open sectional qualifier Monday at Hawks Ridge Golf Club in Ball Ground, Ga. Representing 12 states and three foreign countries, they will be playing 36 holes for three spots and two alternate positions in the U.S. Open set for June 18-21 at Chambers Bay in University Place, Wash. Another participant is James White of Acworth, Ga., a touring professional and former winner of the annual American Junior Golf Association tournament at WindStone.
Cycling
* The 2015 Remember the Removal Bike Ride will begin Sunday from New Echota, Ga., for a three-week 950-mile journey through seven states to Tahlequah, Okla., and the first four days will be in the Chattanooga area. With 12 members of the Cherokee Nation based in Oklahoma and seven riders from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the ride essentially retraces the northern route of the Trail of Tears in 1839. “The Remember the Removal project ensures our tribe’s future leaders never forget our past or the sacrifices our ancestors made,” Cherokee National principal chief Bill John Baker said in a news release. “This annual bike ride from Georgia to Oklahoma is mentally and physically demanding, and I admire these young people for taking on such a challenge.” The first day will end in Cleveland, Tenn., and the riders will go from there to Dayton on Monday, then to Pikeville on Tuesday and to Woodbury on Wednesday.
Volleyball
* Having just completed their Cars0n-Newman careers, Kristen Pickett from Cleveland High School and Rachel Harper from Boyd-Buchanan recently repeated their 2014 Nashville regional championship for a berth in the National Collegiate Sand Volleyball Association’s World Series of Beach Volleyball this August. “I didn’t think we played well at all,” Pickett said in a CNU release. “However, we knew what we had to do to pick up another win. We were fortunate to just play well enough to squeak out the title.” A pair of Carson-Newman rising juniors won the sand regional in New Jersey.
Basketball
* Recent Collegedale Academy graduate Zach Davis has signed intent papers to continue his basketball career at Georgia Northwestern. At 6-foot-8, he is the tallest recruit in Bobcats history, and he has perimeter skills. He averaged nearly 15 points and 10 rebounds a game. “If he could put on another 20 to 25 pounds of muscle between this summer and next, that would help, but he’ll still be 6-foot-8 with long arms and he’s got 3-point (shooting) range,” GNTC coach David Stephenson said in a release. “He’s going to be an intimidating factor for us just by being on the floor.” Collegedale coach Kevin Pride said the Bobcats “are getting a top-notch guy and a hard worker on the floor. Then off the floor they are getting a great person.”