The Rhea County trio of Andy Morgan, Wesley Strader and Michael Neal will begin another Walmart FLW Tour angling season this Thursday on Lake Okeechobee in Florida.
This is the 21st season on the top professional fishing circuit for Dayton resident Morgan, the angler of the year in 2013 and 2014, and the 20th for Spring City’s Strader, who led the points standings for a while and finished sixth last year, when Morgan was ninth. Neal, also from Dayton, is starting his fifth year as an FLW Tour regular and was 31st in the points standings in 2015.
Tennis
‘ The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s tennis team lost 4-0 Sunday against Tennessee in a match delayed from a week earlier and moved to McCallie School.
UTC also lost there Saturday, 4-1 against the University of Alabama at Birmingham, when Samantha Caswell got the Mocs’ point with a 6-3, 6-1 win at No. 3 singles and Kayla Jones and Kelsey Coots won 6-3 at No. 1 doubles. The Mocs fell to 0-3 with Sunday’s loss. They’ll get their next chance at their first win of 2016 when they travel Thursday to face Middle Tennessee State.
‘ UTC’s men’s team followed a 7-0 loss Friday at Memphis with a 4-3 win Saturday at Austin Peay.
The Mocs’ Lucas Plesky and Luke Saunders won in doubles and singles, and Nick Wingord and Pablo Llebeili also won their singles matches, with Llebeili overcoming cramps for the deciding third-set tiebreaker win over Baylor School alumnus Chad Woodham. “I was really proud of our team today,” UTC coach Carlos Garcia said in a school report. “This was a great early-season comeback that we needed against a quality in-state rival.” The Mocs (1-2) will host Tennessee Wesleyan in a makeup match Thursday at 2 p.m. at the Champions Club.
Basketball
‘ Sewanee split a Southern Athletic Association basketball doubleheader with Berry on Sunday in Rome, Ga., with Sewanee winning the men’s game 80-65 and Berry winning the women’s game 76-68.
All five starters scored in double figures for the Tigers (13-6, 6-2 SAA), who led 36-25 at halftime and won for the second straight game after suffering back-to-back losses. Cody Jones led Sewanee with 18 points and two teammates registered double-doubles – Brody Stone with 16 points and 15 rebounds and Keshonn Carter with 12 points and 11 rebounds. Jacob McCullough had 13 points, eight rebounds, five assists and five steals, while Clay Born scored 12 points for Sewanee, which finished with a 48-28 edge on rebounds, including 35-11 on defensive rebounds.
Carter reached the 1,000-point mark for his career in the game and became the 13th Tiger to amass 1,000 points and 500 rebounds. The senior forward has 1,004 points and 559 rebounds.
Sewanee’s women suffered their third loss in four games, falling to 11-8 overall and 3-5 in the league despite another outstanding performance from freshman Bella Taylor, who finished with 30 points, seven assists, four rebounds and four steals.
She went 10-for-11 from the foul line as part of a 12-for-13 performance there for the Tigers, who trailed 22-16, 39-35 and 56-48 at the quarter breaks. Corey Caulder added 12 points and seven rebounds, and the Tigers got nine points apiece from Jamie Chauvin and Katie Roth, with Roth scoring hers in 12 minutes after coming off the bench.