Covenant College senior guard TJ Cox was announced Thursday as a National Association of Basketball Coaches second-team All-South District player for NCAA Division III. He is the first player to earn NABC all-district recognition since the Lookout Mountain school joined the NCAA. Cox led the Scots into their first NCAA national tournament with 14.6 points and 3.6 assists a game. He was first-team All-USA South and the most valuable player of the league tournament.
Golf
- The ninth-ranked girls' golfer in Georgia, three-time all-stater Isabel Rijos of Northside High School in Columbus, signed Thursday to play next school year for Dalton State College.
She joins Baylor's Tia Teiniketo and Union Grove's Hannah Gasaway as new recruits for coach Jim McGrew.
"We are extremely excited to add Isabel to this class," he said in a DSC release. "I have recruited her for three years, and she will have a huge impact on our program and our school. Isabel is a great person, great student and she will be a four-time all-state high school player and knows how to win."
Rijos twice has been the Columbus-area player of the year, and she has won two Southeastern Junior Golf Tour events. Her Northside coach is 1988 Dalton High graduate Tish Knight Hidle. The current DSC team will play this Saturday and Sunday in the 18-team Low Country Intercollegiate at Hilton Head Island, with the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga also in the mostly Division I field.
- Bryan College was ninth out of 17 teams in the Skyhawk Invitational men's golf tournament this week at Pine Mountain, Ga., with Nick Scully ninth individually at 151 and Paul Houk 17th at 153. Bryan freshman Krista Reinhardt was eighth at 157 in the women's event.
Girls Preparatory School senior setter Gabby Hughes- Girls Preparatory School senior setter Gabby Hughes has signed a letter of intent to continue her volleyball career at Huntingdon College, an NCAA Division III school in Montgomery, Ala.
She was a third-team Best of Preps selection last fall.
She's been playing the sport since fourth grade and likes it above all others because, she said, "it's fast-paced - if you're on the floor you can touch the ball five times in a minute - and different stuff happens every match, crazy plays." Huntingdon, she said, "is close enough to home - about three hours away - and the campus is super cool. It's a small school - I didn't want big - and I really like the coaches. They made me feel welcome every time I visited."
An honor student and cellist in the GPS senior orchestra, the 5-foot-8 Hughes clearly is "well-rounded" but also has "fierce" determination and has worked hard to become a very good setter and server, assistant coach Geri Gearrin said. "
And she will do anything you ask her to do," Gearrin added. "This girl is going to be just amazing in her life."
Baseball
- Cleveland State freshman Jake Rogers from Gordon Lee High School was selected as the TCCAA baseball pitcher of the week for the second time in a row after his three-hit shutout with nine strikeouts last weekend against Jackson State.
He's 4-1 with a 2.03 earned run average for the season. The Cougars are 13-9 with eight wins in nine games after beating the Tusculum junior varsity 12-4 and 8-5 on Wednesday. Lee Gibson, Billy Brand and Hagen Wilkey each homered and batted in two runs in the first game, when Blake Thomas had three RBIs, and Gibson and Parker Cochran had two RBIs apiece in game two.
Softball
- After falling only 4-3 to top-ranked Auburn-Montgomery in NAIA softball Wednesday, the Bryan College softball team lost 10-2 to the 22-1 Lady Senators and then fell 8-0 and 11-1 Thursday at another Montgomery school, Faulkner. Wednesday, Kim Borowski and Lacye Walker homered for Bryan (13-11) in a three-run sixth inning in the first game and Borowski was 2-for-3 and Becca Zimmerman was 1-for-2 with an RBI in game two.
- Courtni Hammers has eight hits, including two home runs and two doubles, in her last 15 at-bats for the Cleveland State softball team, which takes an 11-9 overall record and 3-5 TCCAA mark into a weekend series at Southwest Tennessee (4-15, 0-8). Hammers drove in seven runs and scored five in the last four games.
Tennis
- Dalton State is hosting the SSAS Tennis Round-up today and Saturday with the NAIA's fifth-ranked Roadrunners facing Brewton-Parker at 3 p.m. today on campus and the Lady Roadrunners meeting sixth-ranked Brenau at Dalton Golf and Country Club. Middle Georgia State, Martin Methodist, Coastal Georgia and Bethel men's and women's teams will be playing at Lakeshore Park in matches starting at 9 a.m. and 3, and play will resume there at 10 a.m. Saturday.
- The Sewanee women's tennis team moved up two spots Thursday to No. 10 in the ITA rankings for Division III. The Tigers have beat three teams in the top 32, and all five of their losses have been to teams in the top 12, including Nos. 2, 3 and 4.