Notre Dame's C.J. Petrin and McCallie's Andrew Haun and Jet Hieronymus comprise half of the Division II boys' finalists in the TSSAA state tournament at the Smyrna Bowling Center, and Rhea County's Phillip Rogers is one of the six in Division I. Rhea's Baylee Shipley and Walker Valley's Natily Haro are Division I girls' finalists.
Haro was fifth after the semifinals after four-game rounds of 798 and 830, for a 203.5 average that included a 265, and will open the ladder-match finals this morning against Germantown's Jada Horn. Shipley is seeded third at 207.9. Hardin County's Faith Welch averaged 216.1 and awaits the ladder survivor for the championship matchup.
Girls Preparatory School's Katelyn Beach (152.8), Allie Foropoulous (149.8) and Emma Prostko (147.3) finished eighth, 10th and 12th with Baylor's Abby McNamara (147.8) 11th in the Division II girls' competition. Notre Dame's Gretchen Eckler was 17th at 135.3.
Chattanooga showed strength in the D-II boys' event with Petrin second at 221.8, close behind Friendship Christian's Dalton Karstens at 222.5 and barely ahead of Haun at 221.3. Hieronymus was fourth at 211.0. Notre Dame's Tariq Griffen finished ninth at 187.5, and Baylor's Dalton Chuba was 19th at 159.5.
Rogers (215.4) is the fifth seed in Division I and faces Knoxville Catholic's Austin Humphreys (214.1) as ladder face-offs begin. Walker Valley's Jacob Brown finished 15th at 204.4.
Team play at Smyrna begins this afternoon with the semifinals and finals Saturday.
Hayes to be honored
East Hamilton junior guard Madison Hayes will be recognized after tonight's home girls' basketball game against Knoxville's Bearden for having scored more than 2,000 career points and having 1,000 career rebounds. With the rest of this season and her senior year remaining, Hayes already is the Lady Hurricanes' all-time leader in both points and rebounds.
Bearettes still rolling
A program with the most wins in state history on the basketball court continues to set a dominant tone. Bradley Central's girls have won eight straight District 5-AAA championships and 60 straight games against league foes.
The defensively sound Bearettes' last loss in district play came in 2014 against Cleveland. Since then, Bradley Central has won 132 games compared to just 11 losses and has two state semifinal appearances.
Even without Southeastern Conference freshman star Rhyne Howard, who's now at Kentucky, coach Jason Reuter's squad is 18-2 overall and ranked No. 3 in Class AAA in the first Associated Press poll released this week.
The Bearettes are in search of their fifth 30-plus win season in nine years, which has produced an 89 percent winning rate.
Bradley inducting two
Bradley Central also will induct two new members into its hall of fame tonight, adding former all-state boys' basketball stars Justin Hare and Kellen Pickel. The backcourt pair helped the Bears reach the state tournament all three seasons they were starters (2002-04) and compile a 100-11 overall record during that time.
Hare is the Bradley boys' third-leading scorer with 2,018 points and was a Mr. Basketball finalist in 2004. He went on to play at Belmont University, where he became the second-leading career scorer and made 14 shots that either won a game or forced overtime.
Pickel ranks 10th on the Bears' all-time scoring list with 1,454 points, including one game in which he had 31 and the winning free throws in a one-point win over rival Cleveland.