The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is in fifth place at 8-over-par 296 after Sunday's first round in the Southern Conference men's golf tournament at the Pinehurst No. 9 course in North Carolina, and the Mocs' Oliver Simonsen and Connor Nolan are tied for ninth individually at even-par 72. Defending champion UNC Greensboro leads by six strokes at 283 with Zack Swanson atop the leaderboard at 68, and East Tennessee State and Mercer are at 289. Furman is fourth at 294, and Samford is sixth at 297. Also for UTC, Lake Johnson is tied for 17th at 74 and Will Porter and Etienne Brault share 29th place with 78s.
Track & Field
» UTC senior Mark Britt made his last collegiate running event a winning one Saturday with a 1500-meter victory at Auburn's War Eagle Invitational, and the Mocs had five top-eight finishes in all. Josh Topham was seventh in the 1500, Britt was seventh Friday in his first 3000 steeplechase, Jonathan Boyd was fourth in the 5000, Jada Hale was third in the women's 5000 and Nicole Buehrle was fifth in the 1500 invitational. Hale, Buehrle and Boyd had personal records in those events.
» Led by a 30-second victory for Ana Karen Padilla in the 3000 steeplechase and her second place with three teammates also in the top six in the 10,000-meter run, Dalton State's 10-member women's team finished fourth in the Southern States Athletic Conference meet in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Reagan Guess was third, Alex Gass fourth and Morgan King sixth in Friday's 10k, and they with Padilla were fifth as a group in the 4x400 relay Saturday, when King and Rebecca Poe were third and fourth behind Padilla in the steeple. DSC's Hayley Hight, Kay Vradenburgh, Guess and Gass were third, fourth, fifth and seventh in the 5000, and Vradenburgh and Hight were fifth and sixth in the 1500. Anna Bramblett was 10th in the shot put with a school-record heave. Padilla's 42:37 10k time was a school record by 43 seconds.
» Tennessee Wesleyan junior Dillan Elkins was the NAIA national men's track athlete of the week for meets of April 8-14. He won the 200 and 400 in strong fields at Williamsburg, Kentucky. Elkins was the national honoree three weeks earlier also.
Basketball
» Cleveland State guard Exavian Young committed last week to continue his basketball career at Blue Mountain College, an NAIA Division I program in northern Mississippi. The 6-foot-4 sophomore from Memphis averaged 8.8 points a game for the Cougars this past season and helped them win the NJCAA Region VII tournament and a game in the national tournament. Young scored 13 points in that one. "This is a great accomplishment for Exavian," coach Lee Cigliano said in a Cleveland State release. "He missed over two months of the season due to an injury. When he came back, he really gave us a lift in mid-January with his shooting and overall offense. He will do well in this next step."
Baseball
» Tennessee Wesleyan's rained-out Appalachian Athletic Conference home baseball doubleheader against Point University has been reset for today, starting at 1 p.m. They played the first game of the series Thursday with No. 2-ranked TWU (39-7, 17-5) winning 11-10. Bryan College (30-12, 14-7) is playing a doubleheader today at Bluefield, starting at 11 a.m., and a third game there Tuesday at 1.
» Covenant College made the eight-team field for the USA South tournament but is seeded eighth with a 9-13 league record and opens against top-seeded Piedmont (19-3) in the double-elimination event Thursday at LaGrange, Georgia. The game is scheduled for 3:30 p.m.
Softball
» Tennessee Wesleyan's softball team tied for second in the AAC in the regular season and is seeded third for the eight-team league tournament, which starts Wednesday in Kingsport with the Lady Bulldogs (27-7, 20-6) meeting Milligan (18-16, 16-10) in the 5 p.m. game. Bryan (20-26, 13-13) got in as No. 8 and faces top seed Truett McConnell (41-7, 24-2) at 1 p.m. The format is double-elimination.