Andy Morgan of Dayton, Tenn., clinched his third Walmart FLW Tour Angler of the Year honor in four years Friday at Lake Champlain in New York. He’s in the top 20 for the semifinal round today. The AOY award for the season points lead comes with $100,000. “My first two tournaments (of 2016) were not that great,” Morgan said in an FLW Outdoors posting. ” The last four tournaments I put it together, and it just worked out well.” The Livingston Lures pro, who was ninth in points last year, is 10th on Champlain with 35 pounds of bass for two days. Wesley Strader of Spring City (14th in points) is 14th at 34-8, and Michael Neal of Dayton (eighth) is 38th at 32-9 and got $10,000. Scott Martin of Clewiston, Fla., leads at 42-5.
Golf
* A University of Tennessee at Chattanooga golfer is in each of today’s semifinal matches in the Tennessee Four-Ball Championship at Black Creek Club. The Mocs’ Lake Johnson will be playing with former Chattanooga Christian teammate Scott Stevens, now at South Carolina, against Vince Gallagher of Springfield, Tenn., and Jacob Sherlin of Hendersonville, while UTC’s Andrew Weathers from McCallie School and partner Mikey Feher from Baylor School and Lipscomb University will face Jack Smith and Ryan Greer of Knoxville. The winning duos will play this afternoon for the 2016 championship. Johnson and Stevens won 3 and 2 and 1 up in their matches Friday, and Weathers and Feher had two 3-and-2 wins. The first of those was against two other local players, Tom Schreiner and Trevor Potts. Top seeds Ben Rebne and Sport Allmond from Heritage High won 5 and 4 over Notre Dame alumni Alex and Zach Riddle but then lost 2 and 1 to Gallagher and Sherlin.
Running
* The College Sports Information Directors of America have named UTC’s Paul Stuart a second-team Academic All-American for his junior year of cross country. Stuart was all-conference with a 12th-place finish in the Southern Conference meet last fall and was 72nd overall in the NCAA South Region 10k. He finished no worse than eighth in regular-season meets and graduated in December with a degree in accounting with Latin honors. He began work on a master’s degree in the spring semester and had a 3.5 grade point average. “Paul was a great competitor for us this season,” Bill Gautier said in a UTC release. “Our team had a lot of newcomers and Paul stepped up to lead them on the course and is an exemplary student.”
Basketball
* Alicia Payne, a senior on the SoCon champion UTC women’s basketball team last winter, is one of two representatives of the conference among the record 517 nominees for the NCAA Woman of the Year awards. The other is UNC Greensboro basketball player Lucy Mason. The award honors a female athlete who completed her eligibility in the given year and was exceptional in athletics, academics, leadership and service. This year’s candidates in the three NCAA divisions, including 231 in Division I, represent 21 sports. The nominees will be trimmed to 10 in each division, and those 30 will be cut to nine before the winner is determined and announced on Oct. 16. Payne was a two-time SoCon defensive player of the year and the most outstanding player of the 2016 league tournament, and she graduated with a 3.88 GPA. With hundreds of hours of community service during her UTC career, she was the first recipient of the SoCon’s EnVeritas Group Graduate Scholarship.
Football
* UTC senior Derrick Craine from McDonough, Ga., was included this week in a story by Athlon Sports as one of the top 10 ball carriers in the Football Championship Subdivision. Craine was listed as No. 9 after running for a school-record 1,251 yards and 13 touchdowns last season. He was first-team All-Southern Conference. He is one of 16 returning starters and 47 returning lettermen for the Mocs.