Patrick MacCoon

The Prep Players Spotlight is a weekly feature of the Times Free Press that highlights five area high school athletes whose performances since the previous Thursday stood out.

Mo Schramm's energy was uplifting for Class AAA's undefeated Cleveland Blue Raiders as they came out on top of a dogfight Tuesday night.

More than just shining on the basketball court, Olivia Koontz is setting a great example off it.

McCallie's fifth annual Dr Pepper Classic wrapped up Saturday with three basketball games, and the host Blue Tornado and Hamilton Heights Christian Academy provided the finishing touch in a matchup of Chattanooga teams.

McCallie's Dr Pepper Classic was created to give both national and local high school basketball standouts the chance to star and make memories.

Taking off from just a step beyond the free-throw line, Samson Ruzhentsev soared to his second straight Dr Pepper dunk contest championship Friday afternoon at McCallie.

If the 10th-ranked Howard Hustlin' Tigers want to make the same push they did last year to the Class AA basketball state tournament, they need 6-foot-5 junior forward Kerrick Thorne to be a driving force.

The Prep Players Spotlight is a weekly feature of the Times Free Press that highlights five area high school athletes whose performances since the previous Thursday stood out.

Top-ranked Cleveland stretched its undefeated season start to 22-0 as JaCobi Wood's teammates fired up the senior leader to help close out a 63-49 home victory in a storied crosstown rivalry game Tuesday night.

In a clip from the 1993 movie "Sandlot," Babe Ruth's character has a powerful message: "Remember, kid, there's heroes and there's legends. Heroes get remembered but legends never die. Follow your heart kid, and you'll never go wrong."

The Notre Dame High School boys' bowling team could not have picked a better time to break a school record.

Well before stepping on the floor inside the historic Jimmy Duke Arena versus an archrival, Baylor sophomore Eli Sparkman was counting down the seconds until the opening tip in a region home game Saturday.

After Baylor 182-pound senior and state champion hopeful Connor Duffy took his opponent down to the mat with authority, the road crowd erupted as his brute force got things rolling against an archrival.

It didn't take long for Shaw Gamble to reach his goal of becoming the head coach of a high school baseball program.

As a member of Tennessee's most decorated high school wrestling program, Tyrone McDonald is one of five Bradley Central seniors who hope to end their Bears careers on top at next month's state competitions in Franklin.

Before the current group of seniors arrived, the Polk County High School boys' basketball program had averaged just 8.7 wins in 15 years, with only one winning season — 18-13 in 2005-06.

The Chattanooga high school basketball scene has reason to celebrate — several of them, in fact.

The Prep Players Spotlight is a weekly feature of the Times Free Press that highlights five area high school athletes whose performances since the previous Thursday stood out.

As the Chattooga and Trion wrestlers returned home with two of the seven GHSA duals state championship trophies last Saturday night, two neighboring towns celebrated a remarkable feat together.

The rest of District 5-AAA continues to chase the Bradley Central girls.