Local golfer and Covenant College golf coach Tom Schreiner qualified this week for the U.S. Senior Amateur tournament Aug. 24-29 at Old Chatham Golf Club in Durham, North Carolina. He got in by winning an eight-way playoff for the sixth and final spot awarded from sectional qualifying Monday in Asheville. Six of the eight shooting 72s at Biltmore Forest Country Club were eliminated on the first or second playoff hole, but Schreiner needed three more holes to get past his last opponent. "I have been attempting USGA championships for 30 years, everything from U.S. Opens to U.S. Amateurs, U.S. Mid-Am to now the Senior variety. It feels good to finally make one," he said in a Covenant release Thursday. "I've been close a number of times - an alternate six or seven times and missed by a shot or two probably another 10 or so times. It's just really tough to go out there with a hundred guys who can really play and finish in the top four or five. Six spots out of 120 players is pretty tough, but that sudden-death playoff, with eight guys fighting for one remaining spot that was as nervous as I have been on the golf course in many years."
Fishing
» The Bryan College pair of Cole Sands and Conner DiMauro took the first-day lead by more than two pounds Thursday in the Carhartt Bassmaster College Series National Championship out of Dayton, Bryan's hometown, on Chickamauga Lake. Sands, who is from nearby Calhoun, Tennessee, and DiMauro from Orlando, Florida, combined for a five-bass limit totaling 24 pounds, 9 ounces. Sands hooked a 7-15 giant. The second-place haul was 22-6 by Bethel University's Carter McNeil and Cole Floyd. Landon Siggers and Logan Reynolds of Wytheville Community College were third at 20-6 with Montevallo's Jarrett Brown and Elliot Torode fourth at 19-14 and Tennessee's Robert Gee and Saxton Long close behind at 19-12. Alabama and Arkansas boats were sixth and seventh. Bryan's Griffin Heffington and Mason Cizek were 23rd at 14-11, one ounce ahead of Tennessee Tech's Samuel Vandagriff from McMinnville and Jacob Woods from Loudon. The top 12 after today's round will compete Saturday for the national title.
Swimming
» University of Florida swimmer Trey Freeman from Baylor School finished seventh in the B final of the men's 200-meter freestyle Thursday in the USA Swimming Phillips 66 National Championships at Stanford University. Freeman's time was 1:49.61 in the race for those who finished ninth through 16th in the preliminaries, where he was 14th in 1:49.09.
Volleyball
» Bryan's 2019 volleyball schedule will begin Aug. 23-24 in Michigan-Dearborn's Early Bird Classic, followed a week later by the Lady Lions' own Bryan Bash tournament. Then it's right into Appalachian Athletic Conference play with home matches against Milligan and Bluefield on Sept. 5 and 7, a visit to Montreat on Sept. 10 and home contests against Truett McConnell and Brenau on Sept. 13-14. Coach Jessica Day's team also hosts Tennessee Wesleyan on Oct. 1, Montreat on Oct. 8, Union College on Oct. 15, Kentucky Christian on Oct. 19, Allen on Oct. 25, Columbia College on Oct. 26 and nonconference foe Martin Methodist on Oct. 31. Bryan plays at nearby TWU on Oct. 29. For the 2018-19 school year, the Lady Lions were an AVCA academic team for their aggregate grade point average above 3.30. Bryan was one of only 51 NAIA teams honored.