After winning the NCAA Division II South meet last Saturday, Lee University's Celine Ritter officially was named Wednesday the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association women's athlete of the year for the region, and the champion Lady Flames' Caleb Morgan was declared coach of the year. The nationally eighth-ranked Lee women have won all five of their meets this season, and Ritter's closest competition for the top region honor was teammate Chloe Flora, Saturday's race runner-up. They were joined in all-region status by Charlee Boxall, Toni Moore, Becca Umbarger and Emma Clark, and all-region Lee men were Thomas Kelton, Ben Tabor, Casey Guthery and Caleb Eagleson.
* The Tennessee Wesleyan women finished third out of 15 teams in the Appalachian Athletic Conference cross country meet last weekend in Canton, Georgia, and their Mysteree Bottorff was 10th individually and second-team All-AAC. TWU's Rachel Gallison, Rosa Cisneros and Hailey Polillo were 15th, 17th and 21st, and Sarah Welch from 10th-place Bryan was 24th. TWU was fifth and Bryan eighth in the 12-team men's race, where TWU's Cody Demalavez, Romeo Blackburn, Antonio Alejos and Jared Tinker were 25th, 26th, 30th and 32nd and Bryan's Jackson Hughes and Brady Smith were 34th and 38th.
Basketball
* Abby Bertram and Taylor Boggess scored 17 points apiece and Becca Cheeks added 15 at the Lee women's basketball team rose to 3-0 with a 78-49 home win Wednesday over Trevecca Nazarene. Boggess made five 3-point baskets. The Lee men (2-1) beat Brescia 76-58 behind 19 points each from Ryan Montgomery and Beyuan Hendricks and 17 plus nine rebounds from Quay Kennedy. Montgomery had seven rebounds and three steals, and Parker Suedekum had eight assists and four steals.
* The Bryan College teams both overcame halftime deficits in AAC home wins over Bluefield, 65-58 in the women's game and 75-61 in the men's. Kaitlynn Hennessee hit four of five 3s and totaled 24 points, eight rebounds and three blocked shots for the Lady Lions (6-0, 3-0), while Karli Combs had 10 points, Shayla Ludy eight rebounds and three steals and Deandra Luna six assists. For the Lions (3-2, 2-1), who shot 62.5% in the 49-26 second half, Isaiah McClain had 18 points and four assists, Brandon Thomas 17 points and 13 rebounds and Keaton Dotson 13 points with three 3s.
Soccer
* Bryan senior Joe Goreham was named the Tennessee Sports Writers Association's men's soccer player of the week for his tying goal and overtime winner in an AAC tournament semifinal against Reinhardt.
Volleyball
* Tennessee Wesleyan's volleyball season ended Wednesday with a 3-1 loss to Truett McConnell (17-18) in the first round of the AAC tournament at Kingsport. The set scores were 27-29, 25-19, 25-23, 25-19. Marjorie Smith had 23 kills, 17 digs and three aces in defeat for the Lady Bulldogs (7-21), who got 33 assists and 17 digs from Kalyse Garrett, 16 digs from Tia Madden, 13 digs from Emily Donovan and eight kills from Gabby Harris.
Swimming & Diving
* Although Sewanee lost 175-121 to visiting Berry College last weekend, the Tigers' Kate Mabry and Paisley Simmons swept the Southern Athletic Association women's awards for swimmer and diver of the week. Qualifying for NCAA regional competition for the third year in a row, Simmons won both diving events Saturday, while Mabry won the 100 and 200 backstroke events, finished third in the 200 individual medley and helped in a second-place 200 medley relay. Also against Berry, Gabby Acker won the 100 and 200 breaststrokes and Anna Hawkins Dulaney won the 100 freestyle. The Sewanee men lost 149-136 to Berry but got first places from Anthony Carbone in the 200 free, 100 breast and 200 IM, from Carl Failing in the 50 and 100 frees, from Jed Henrichsen in both 1-meter diving events and from James Hoyt in the 1000 free. Hoyt added two runner-up finishes, and Failing had one.
Outdoors note
* The celebration of Veterans Day in the Chattanooga area was definitely a long weekend from a footrace standpoint. An ultra long weekend, in fact. In addition to the 42-plus total miles of the time-honored Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon, half marathon and 5k in Fort Oglethorpe, Saturday included the infamous Upchuck 50k on the Cumberland Trail at Soddy-Daisy - part of the annual Wild Trails Race Series - and the beginning of a three-day Run Amok campout and trail-races extravaganza at Harrison Bay State Park. According to the RunAwesomeSauce website, that included options of 100 and 50 miles and 100, 50, 10 and 5 kilometers, and participants came from near and far. Nathan Holland of Signal Mountain repeated his 2018 win in the Upchuck, though not in the same record time of 4:21:16. But his 4:26:54 last Saturday was the fifth best in the event's 12-year history, and it comfortably beat runner-up Felipe Cancino's 4:44:08. Cancino is from Santiago, Chile, and a Montana runner and a Little Rock resident were fifth and sixth. Chris Carter of Chattanooga was third in 4:48:05, Ryne Anderson of Franklin was fourth and local runners Sam Adams, Ryan Meulemans, Darren Howard and first female Kari Laramore (5:31:35) were seventh through 10th out of 73 finishers. Shannon Wheeler Deboef of Hixson was the second woman and 22nd overall.