Around the Region: Manker Patten hosting TVOC tennis this week

Around the Region
Around the Region

The annual Tennessee Valley Open Championships will run Wednesday through next Sunday at Manker Patten Tennis Club, and the tournament pays $13,000 in prize money. The TVOC men's open singles winner will receive $3,000, and the women's open singles champion will get $1,500. Open doubles winners will receive $800 (men) and $500 (women). There also are age-group divisions of 35s, 45s, 55s, 65s and 75s in singles and doubles and 35s, 45s, 55s and 65s in mixed doubles. Entries close at 11:59 tonight through www.usta.com (tournament ID 700081316). University of Georgia player Nathan Pasha and Alabama's Maya Jansen were the open singles winners last year.

Baseball/Softball

* Third baseman Sully Rios Reyes and shortstop Wardy Polanco from Tennessee Wesleyan were voted to the 2016 Avista-NAIA Baseball All-World Series team after the Bulldogs' top-four finish in Lewiston, Idaho, and Polanco also was presented the Charles Berry Hustle Award. The two teams that beat TWC in the tournament played for the championship, with host Lewis-Clark State holding off top-seeded Faulkner 12-11 in a game with a Series-record 11 home runs. The Warriors won for the second year in a row and the 18th time overall.

* Bryan College baseball second baseman Cody Rhinehart from Ooltewah, Bryan softball pitcher/outfielder Sarah Hundley from Chattanooga Christian and Tennessee Wesleyan shortstop Stephanie Bridges from Knoxville Halls were named Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athletes for 2016. Bryan junior varsity players Sawyer Bowen and Daniel Bowers joined Rhinehart among the 353 baseball honorees. All five were seniors in the 2016 season. One of the criteria is having at least a 3.5 grade point average on a 4.0 scale. Rhinehart is a three-time All-Appalachian Athletic Conference player who had a career batting average of .345 with 243 hits and 118 runs batted in. Hundley was the AAC softball pitcher of the year with a 10-5 record, one save, a 2.87 earned run average and a .228 opponents' batting average in 2016, while batting .264. She was 7-1 with a 1.31 ERA in conference games. Bridges hit .400 with a team-high 52 hits, 28 runs scored and 11 stolen bases in 13 tries and was second-team All-AAC.

Golf

* University of Tennessee at Chattanooga golfer Lake Johnson, former UTC standout Derek Rende and former Athens resident Eric Axley of Knoxville will play Monday at Memphis in a U.S. Open sectional qualifier at the Germantown and Ridgeway country clubs. The 36-hole event will advance players to the U.S. Open (June 16-19 at Oakmont, Pa.) and identify others as alternates. Lee University's Shea Sylvester of Roswell, Ga., and former Dalton High School player Blake Adams of Eatonton, Ga., will be at Ansley Golf Club-Settindown Creek in Roswell with three Open spots and two alternate positions at stake.

* Dalton State tied for 13th in the final NAIA men's golf poll for the 2015-16 season. Oklahoma City finished No. 1 after winning its 10th national title and third in five years.

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