Chattanooga State's sizzling Lady Tigers are seeded 19th in the 32-team NJCAA Division I tournament next week in Lubbock, Texas, and open there Tuesday night against a Texas team, Odessa, seeded 14th. Game time is 10:30 p.m. EDT, and the winner will play No. 3 seed Northwest Florida State (27-4) the next night. Odessa is 23-9. Chattanooga State is 27-5 but has lost only once since Nov. 23. That was on Jan. 11 at Dyersburg State, which the Lady Tigers beat 98-68 on Feb. 15 and 85-59 on March 3 in the Region VII tournament final on a neutral court. In that championship game the Lady Tigers ran away in the second half and got 25 points and 11 rebounds from Melisa Carter, 15 and 14 from Shaquala Walton, 12 rebounds from Gla'Mia Letcher and 23 points, eight rebounds, five assists and three steals from Naja Fenelon. With a 64-36 margin in rebounds, including 25-4 of the offensive variety, Chattanooga State took 30 more shots than Dyersburg.
Wrestling
* The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga wrestling team got two of the three Southern Conference at-large invitees Tuesday to the NCAA Division I tournament March 19-21 in Minneapolis: 125-pound SoCon tournament runner-up Fabian Gutierrez and 149-pound runner-up Tanner Smith. They will join teammate Matthew Waddell, who locked up the SoCon's second automatic national spot at 184 on Sunday. Waddell (22-9) was 16th in his weight class in the coaches' most recent rankings; Smith (25-9) was 23rd; Gutierrez (17-9) was 24th.
Golf
* Will Porter shot his second 2-under-par 70 of Auburn's Tiger Invitational tournament Tuesday at Opelika, Alabama, and tied for eighth individually at 214, and UTC teammate A.J. Lintunen also shot 70 and tied for 17th at 217. The Mocs collectively shot 2-under 286, the team's fourth best score of the 2019-20 season, and moved up to a final tie for 11th out of 19 teams at 881. Host Auburn shot 277 and won by 11 strokes.
* The UTC women also had a top-10 finisher, sophomore Dorota Zalewska in a tie for 10th at 224, and finished seventh at 916 out of 15 teams in the UNF Collegiate at the Jacksonville Country Club. Host North Florida won by four shots over Seton Hall. UTC's Maddy McDanel matched Zalewska's closing 74 and tied for 25th at 228, and Esme Hamilton tied for 28th at 230.
Softball
' UTC junior Allison Swinford from Dalton High School was chosen the Southern Conference softball pitcher of the week, despite the Mocs' 1-4 weekend record in Clearwater, Florida. She pitched 16 1/3 innings and went 1-0 with 14 strikeouts and an earned run average of 0.86. That ERA holds up over her last 26 innings, with 27 strikeouts. The Mocs are set to play Merrimack at 11 a.m. today in Clearwater.