Former Ringgold High School and current Clemson University pitcher Matthew Crownover was named one of 21 semifinalists for the Golden Spikes Award on Friday. The award goes to the top amateur baseball player in the nation. Crownover, the 2015 ACC pitcher of the year, is 10-2 with a 1.59 earned run average and has limited opponents to a .183 batting average. The junior has struck out 99 and walked 36 in 102 innings. In ACC regular-season games this season he was 7-1 with a 1.03 ERA. Finalists for the award will be announced June 2, and fan voting is part of the process. Voting, which can be accessed at GoldenSpikesAward.com, opened Friday and the results will be used by a panel of more than 200 people to help narrow the field to the finalists.
* Lee University defeated Palm Beach Atlantic 6-1 in an NCCAA national baseball tournament semifinal game Friday night in Mason, Ohio. Second-seeded Lee had completed a 4-0 run through pool play Thursday night with a 13-3 thrashing of Oklahoma Christian, as Luke Toms homered, drove in three runs and scored three and M.J. Brown went 3-for-5 and matched Trenton Hill with two RBIs in support of Chevis Hoover's five-hit pitching with nine strikeouts in eight innings. Hill pitched a five-hitter Friday and Ben Holland was 3-for-3 with two doubles and four RBIs, while Siosi Poti was 2-for-5 and scored twice for the Flames (39-18-1). They will play at 1 p.m. today in the final against top-seeded and defendind champion Fresno Pacific, which edged OCU 4-3 in 12 innings in the first semifinal. Lee took a 2-0 lead on PBA in the first inning as Chris Adams and Andres Nelo walked and Holland doubled them in. Poti hustled the Flames to a 3-0 margin in the third, when he singled, stole second, took third on a wild pitch and stole home, and Holland doubled and scored on two wild pitches in the sixth and singled in two runs in the seventh.
Golf
* Dalton State golfer Sean Elliott won the Arnold Palmer award as the medalist in the NAIA men's national tournament Friday at LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Fla., and he did it in dominating fashion. His final-round 70 gave him a 72-hole total of 272 and an eight-stroke margin over second-place David Houlding of team runner-up William Woods University. Elliott broke a 1955 record for 72 holes in an NAIA tournament by one shot, and his three-day 202 broke a 1983 standard for 54 holes. Dalton State's Julia McQuilken was the NAIA women's medalist a week earlier in Pooler, Ga. The Roadrunners wound up 13th as a team at 1184, with Levi Nix tying for 23rd individually at 292. Coastal Georgia from DSC's league repeated as national champion at 1145, led by Hunter Cornelius from Heritage High School and Alastair Tidcombe sharing fourth place at 283, and Tennessee Wesleyan was 11th at 1178 with Evan Ball tying for sixth at 285 and Keoni Vidrine tying for 37th at 294.
Softball
* Ericka Bynum from Ringgold was 3-for-3 with two RBIs as Shorter University opened play Thursday in the NCAA Division II national softball tournament in Oklahoma City by defeating seventh-ranked St. Mary's of Texas 4-2. Then she had a two-RBI hit in a five-run fifth inning as the Lady Hawks (43-15) beat No. 10 Indianapolis 5-0 on Friday. Maddie Bray from Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe was Shorter's starting pitcher in that game, giving up four hits and no runs in 2 1/3 innings. Thursday, Kendall Johnson from Gordon Lee walked with two outs in the first inning, stole second, took third on an error and scored on a Bynum single, and Bynum batted in the last run in the three-run fifth.
Running
* Cross country runner Beth Burgess has become the third Covenant College athlete in the 2014-15 school year to earn Capital One Academic All-District status in voting by the College Sports Information Directors of America. As a repeat selection for NCAA Division III cross country and track, she joins soccer players Snoopy Davidson and Joel Friesen. Selection requires a minimum grade point average of 3.3 on a 4.0 scale and significant contributions to the athlete's team. Burgess reset her Lady Scots record for 6 kilometers last fall and was the USA South women's runner of the year, and she graduated this month as a biology major with a 3.83 GPA. She will be attending medical school at the University of Kentucky.