Covenant College's fall sports teams all get under way today, beginning with volleyball at Trevecca Nazarene's Scott Jones Classic in Nashville. The soccer teams will play at Messiah in Pennsylvania, and the Lookout Mountain school's cross country teams will begin competition with their own Scots Opener with the women's two-mile race 6 p.m. and the men's 5k at 6:30. This is the first time in several years for Covenant to host a cross country meet, and it's a two-school competition with another set of Scots, Maryville College. "We are excited to kick off the season at home and on our own trails," coach Katie Stanford said. The volleyball Lady Scots went 22-9 in 2011 and return key players in junior Estes Carlson, seniors Jessica Chittenden and Paige Cheney and sophomore Pretoria den Boer for Heather Taylor's seventh season as coach. Mark Duble begins his 19th as women's soccer coach, and he notably has seinors Kathryn Allison, Mae Mae Johnson, Kara Lee, Mo Cross and Katelyn Newsome back from a 10-9-2 side. Nathan Pifer, like Duble a former Scots standout, is 35-24-3 in three years as their coach. His 2011 team ended 8-10-2 with a loss in the NCCAA Mid-East Regional final. Chris Pifer and Tyler Morrison are key seniors to go with juniors Matt Hudnut, Garrison Dale and goalkeeper Shuler Polk for the Scots, who recently took a 12-day playing/missions trip to the Cayman Islands.
• Sewanee opens its seasons in two sports today, the field hockey team hosting Washington & Lee at 3 p.m. CDT and the men's soccer team playing two hours later in Birmingham against Blackburn. The soccer Tigers, who play Washington University on Sunday in Birmingham, have 21 players back from last year's 8-7-2 team; Blackburn led NCAA Division III with 63 goals in 2011. Seniors Cameron Herndon, Anne Booke, Mallory Silver, Molly Kennedy and Anna Morrow lead the field hockey team, which lost 3-1 to W&L last year but won 3-0 over Transylvania, Sunday's opponent. The Sewanee football team opens Saturday at 1 CDT by hosting Puget Sound.
• The Tennessee Temple men's soccer team lost 5-0 to Campbellsville in Thursday's game at Camp Jordan Park. The Crusaders (0-2) host Trinity Baptist on Saturday morning.
Baseball
• Former Walker Valley High School and Chattanooga Cyclones baseball standout Ryan Fraser was notified this week that he was one of eight players in the New York Mets organization invited to the Arizona Fall League, the six-team league operated by Major League Baseball to give extra work to top prospects. Fraser was an all-conference pitcher at Gulf Coast Community College and then at the University of Memphis. He has a 2-2 record with a 3.58 earned run average since a midseason promotion to the Class AA Binghamton Mets.
• Zane Russell, who graduated with honors this spring from Christ Presbyterian Academy in Nashville, is a recent recruit for the Bryan College baseball team. Russell, whose grandfather John Rouse is among his relatives in Chattanooga, was named to the 2012 Adidas Tennessee all-star team and to the two-way player team chosen by the Tennessee Baseball Coaches Association.
SOFTBALL
• Chattanooga's Scenic City Legends won the 2012 Tennessee Senior Olympics championship in the men's age 70-plus division Aug. 24-25 in Franklin. This qualifies them for the National Senior Olympic Championship series to be played in Cleveland, Ohio, next year. Standouts included Jerry Merriman, who batted .917, and Billy Hall, who batted .818 and pitched all three games. Other team members are Dick Durbin, Charley Tucker, Larry Stophel, Jim Wiley, Ron Delaney, Jay Moyer, Bill Donohue, Gene Hixson, Al Raffo, Ben Dupree, Bill Ingram and player-coach Ken "Fuzzy" Griffith.
Golf
• Council Fire golf professional Richard Rebne finished with a 69 and was sixth at 144 for 36 holes in the Tennessee PGA Senior Section Championship held this week at The Virginian in Bristol. Kingsport's Mark Houser won with a 137, three strokes ahead of runner-up Randy Helton of Murfreesboro. Hunt Gilliland, Council Fire's director of golf, tied for 12th at 153.
• Randy Bowman of Summerville, Ga., tied for 24th in the 26th annual Georgia Senior Championship golf tournament with a 54-hole 235 ending Thursday at Reynolds Plantation-Great Waters in Eatonton. Savannah's Doug Hanzel won by 16 strokes with a 203.