Area Sports Notes: No. 1 seed Furman tops UTC women in SoCon tennis

photo Evelyn Thompson

Top-seeded Furman defeated the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women 4-0 in the Southern Conference tennis semifinals Saturday at the Champions Club, leaving the Mocs at 10-8 for the season. Furman (19-8) won 6-3 and 6-1 at Nos. 1 and 2 doubles and clinched the team victory with straight-sets singles wins by Katty Weymouth, Danni Vines and Georgie Walker over Caroline Hall, Delaney Edwards and Emma Van Hee. In the unfinished matches, however, UTC's Samantha Caswell was up 6-4, 4-4 at No. 1 singles and Tamri Chalaganidze and Bogdana Zaporozhets were leading second sets after 6-4 and 6-3 first-set defeats. Furman will meet East Tennessee State in both the women's and men's finals. ETSU's second-seeded women and No. 1 seeded men beat Samford 4-0 on Saturday, and Furman's third-seeded men topped No. 2 seed Mercer 4-1.

' The nationally 11th-ranked Sewanee women's tennis team downed Oglethorpe 5-0 Saturday and is scheduled to face Millsaps in the Southern Athletic Association tournament finals in Murfreesboro. Posting the 550th career win for coach John Shackelford, the 20th-ranked Sewanee men beat Rhodes 5-1 and also are set to face Millsaps for the championship. Jack Gray with Hayden Loeb and Jack Metzger with Alejandro Becker won in doubles for the male Tigers (21-5), and Ryan Olps, Jordan Brewer and Becker ended the team match with singles wins. The doubles victors for the Sewanee women (20-4) were Clementina Davila with Catherine Owens, Christina Merchant with Ellie Czura and Haley Tucker with Sara Thompson, and Owen won 6-0, 6-1 and Darby Duval won 6-0, 6-0 to end the team contest.

Fishing

' Hensley Powell of Whitwell won the three-day Costa FLW Series Central Division bass tournament on Table Rock Lake in Missouri with 40 pounds, 12 ounces. He earned $49,700 for his victory Saturday in the 197-boat event. Andy Morgan of Dayton was 13th with 25-7 for two days.

' Bryan College anglers Conner Fogg and Chandler Fogg finished 23rd Saturday in the Carhartt Bassmaster College Series Southern Tour tournament on Pickwick Lake. The Foggs were 10th at 32 pounds, 12 ounces after two rounds and wound up at 40-14. An Adrian College duo won with 58-11. Bryan's Nathan Bell and Cole Sands were 33rd at 27-4 for two rounds, and Dalton Price and Jake Lee finished 45th at 25-6.

Basketball

' Cleveland State women's basketball coach Evelyn Thompson will be Northeast Mississippi Community College's inductee into the Mississippi Association of Community and Junior Colleges Sports Hall of Fame on Tuesday at the Hinds CC campus in Pearl. "Evelyn had a huge impact on the success of the Lady Tiger basketball program during her career. She achieved many individual accolades both on and off the court," Northeast president Ricky Ford, who was her coach, said in a story by sports information director Blake Long. Northeast went 34-0 in Thompson's freshman year, when she scored 15 points in the national championship win, and she averaged 24 points and three assists a game in an All-American sophomore season before going on to Auburn and playing on back-to-back NCAA finalists. She also played slowpitch softball for Northeast.

Baseball

' The Tennessee Tech baseball team set an Ohio Valley Conference record Friday night with its 23rd consecutive win, 4-0 over visiting Southern Illinois, and the Golden Eagles made it 25 in a row with 18-5 and 11-4 victories Saturday. They are 33-5.

' Lee University lost 3-1 and 2-1 to visiting West Georgia in Gulf South Conference baseball Friday. Miguel Pimentel homered in the first game and Jordan Howard had the RBI for the Flames (23-23, 14-12) in game two, when pitchers Pat Morrow and Logan Workman combined on a six-hitter with 10 strikeouts in defeat.

' After its 12th consecutive win Friday against Dyersburg State, the Cleveland State baseball team lost 8-1 and 10-2 to the TCCAA visitors Saturday. Brandon Mason was 2-for-3 and Trey Vanderpool had the RBI in the first loss for the Cougars (34-16, 12-11), and Trey Martin and Cameron Payne had RBIs in the finale. Hunter Oliver hit an RBI double and a grand slam in first two innings of Friday's 6-4 win.

' Covenant lost 5-1 and 12-9 to Pfeiffer in baseball Saturday. Trenton Nobles was 2-for-3 and C.J. Edmond had the RBI in the first game for the Scots (13-25), and Caleb Bloye was 4-for-5 with a home run and two RBIs, Devin Cerrato was 3-for-5 and Nobles was 3-for-6 with two runs scored in game two. Donny Lewis had a two-run pinch hit, and Joel Johnson was 2-for-5 with two runs and an RBI.

General

' Covenant and Mary Baldwin University shared the overall USA South Sportsmanship Trophy for the 2017-18 school year, giving the Lookout Mountain school the honor for a fifth consecutive year. The same schools were co-recipients also in 2014-15, and MBU won it outright four of five years before Covenant joined the league. Each of the two earned three sportsmanship awards for specific sports this year, including men's tennis this spring for Covenant.

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