The Appalachian Athletic Conference announced Friday its 2019 men's soccer honors, and regular-season champion Tennessee Wesleyan had the coach of the year, Luke Winter; the defensive player of the year, Montel McKenzie; and the freshman of the year, Nicholas Akoto. McKenzie was a key part of a defense that allowed only 10 goals in league play, and he helped offensively with six goals and seven assists. He made the All-AAC first team along with fellow Bulldogs Nick Croucher, Kuda Nhiwatiwa and Kyle Wynne and Bryan College's Jonathan Ricketts and Brad Spooner. The second team included Akoto (four goals, five assists) and Josh Conradie from TWU and Aaron Attree, Joe Goreham, Haaris Hussain, Lucas Mattos and Lewis Perkins from Bryan. Nhiwatiwa and Bryan's Josh Cash were their teams' Champions of Character. Bryan hosts Union College today at 3 p.m. for the AAC tournament title.
* Top-seeded Truett McConnell shaded visiting Tennessee Wesleyan, the No. 2 seed, 2-1 in two overtimes for the AAC women's championship Friday afternoon. Those teams tied for first in the regular season, and both advance to the NAIA nationals. TWU (17-3) had won 13 consecutive matches since losing 2-0 at TMU (18-2) on Sept. 17. Friday, Siobhan Patterson scored for TWU a minute after TMU's Tori Wilson in the first half, but no one dented the net again until Jennifer McCall converted a Sydney League assist at 101:53. TMU had margins of 17-6 in shots and 5-2 in shots on goal.
* Goals 93 minutes apart by Lee University's Samaan Williams, the second on a feed from his brother Samir, gave the fourth-seeded Flames a 2-1 overtime win over No. 1 seed Mississippi College (9-2-5) in the Gulf South Conference tournament semifinals Friday at Pensacola, Florida. The Lady Flames later edged nationally fifth-ranked Mississippi College 1-0 on Taylor Green's five saves and Kelsey Yoder's 21st-minute goal from a Kate Dirkse assist. The Lee men (11-4-4) will play Sunday at 1 p.m. EST for the title against host West Florida, which is directed by Chattanooga FC coach Bill Elliott. The Lady Flames (16-4) will take on Montevallo at 4.
Volleyball
* Gylian Finch had 22 kills, four aces and 12 digs as the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga volleyball team ended a 17-match losing streak Friday with a 3-2 Southern Conference home win over The Citadel. The set scores were 25-21, 22-25, 25-23, 17-25, 16-14. Also for UTC (6-22, 1-13), Maddie Halsey had 50 assists and 11 digs, Maia Rackel 11 kills, Dani Szczepanski and Sarah Root eight kills each and Brianna Anderson seven kills with 14 digs. Megan Kaufman, now a two-time CoSIDA academic all-district honoree, had 24 digs.
* Lee lost 3-2 (22-25, 25-23, 21-25, 25-12, 15-8) in GSC play to Union University (19-11, 11-4). Hanna Matthews had 44 assists and 17 digs, Quinne Daoust and Bailey Kress 18 kills each and Micaela McMichen 32 digs for Lee (9-21, 2-13). Daoust also had 11 digs; Abby Stroh and Hannah Longley each had 14.
* East Hamilton's Total Destruction volleyball team won the Special Olympics Area 4 regional tournament for the ninth consecutive year last weekend, beating East Hamilton's Storm Surge for a state berth in the unified division final at East Hamilton. Hixson defeated Soddy-Daisy for third place. Unified teams pair special-needs athletes with regular-ed partners. In the traditional division, East Hamilton's Storm Chasers topped both Hixson teams to take first place with Seidy Bello, Nicholas Blackmore, Grayson Brown, Allen Kilgore, Jackson Molnar, Tyler Sloderback and Makyla Swafford. Total Destruction's athletes were Ryan Black, Trevor Belcher, Aaron Young, Manases Gonzalez and Denis Ovalle, and the partners were Jordyn Griffith, Brighton Ralls, Hannah Grey, Allison Giles and Madison Allen.
Running
* The UTC cross country teams finished 20th in the women's race and 21st in the men's 10k at the NCAA South Region meet Friday at Tallahassee, Florida. Twelve Mocs set personal records, led by Makenzie Jones with a 54th-place finish in the 6k.