Chattanooga boxing tourney this weekend

Friday, January 1, 1904

The 78th annual Chattanooga Boxing Championships, formerly known as Golden Gloves, will be held tonight and Saturday night at the Chattanooga Convention Center, and eight states and the District of Columbia will be represented. The national Golden Gloves organization now restricts use of the name to its feeder franchises, which is Knoxville in East Tennessee. Chattanooga's Y-CAP Boxing Club, formerly known as the Westside Knockouts, has eight fighters lined up for tonight's 26 bouts, to be held simultaneously in two rings starting at 8. Crossville has three boxers scheduled for tonight, and Tellico has two. Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Alabama and Arkansas are among the other states that will be represented. Saturday's boxing starts at 6 p.m. Tickets cost $10, $5 for ages 12 and under.

General

• Men's basketball coach Kyle Taylor has been named athletic director at Covenant College, taking over for women's coach Tami Smialek, and Joanna Ehman has been promoted to head volleyball coach after assisting Heather Taylor the last two seasons. Also, Tim Sceggel is being promoted to associate AD for compliance and operations, according to the announcement Thursday by Brad Voyles, the school's vice president of student development. Kyle Taylor previously was an assistant AD. "I am honored, humbled and, if I'm truly honest, a little nervous about the opportunity to be the director of athletics at Covenant College," he said in the school release. "Over the past four years I have really grown to love this place, what it stands for and where it is headed. I am so grateful to have an opportunity to shape the direction of the athletic department within the scope of the larger mission and vision." Ehman was a two-year Covenant volleyball captain with 1,609 assists and 1,153 digs in 427 career games. "I feel blessed to take on this role," she said. "Coach [Heather] Taylor has poured so much into the team during her time here and has built a successful volleyball program. Now, after playing for her and coaching under her, I have the opportunity to build on what she established." Heather Taylor coached 124 wins in eight seasons, including 22 or more the last two years, but stepped aside to focus on her three children. She was the 2012 coach of the year for the Great South Athletic Conference and the National Christian College Athletic Association Mid-East Region.

Tennis

• Manker Patten's Wesley Cash isn't the only Chattanoogan shining in the International Tennis Federation Seniors World Team Championships this week in Antalya, Turkey. While Cash in doubles and his USA team are undefeated in the Austria Cup men's 55 competition going into a playoff match today against Germany, GPS coach Sue Bartlett has won 6-0, 6-0 twice and 6-1, 6-2 for one of the Great Britain teams in the Margaret Court Cup women's 45 division. Her team has won 3-0 against Turkey and 3-0 and 2-1 against two Switzerland groups and faces a French team today.

• Anne Marie Rowe of Covenant College was the GSAC and the NCCAA women's tennis player of the week for her two 6-0, 6-0 singles wins and her 8-1 and 8-0 doubles wins with sister Gretchen Rowe last week against Tennessee Wesleyan and Salem.

• Tennessee Wesleyan's David Escobosa and Ekaterina Vezhenkova were the most recent AAC tennis players of the week. Escobosa won two 6-0, 6-0 No. 2 singles matches and an 8-0 doubles contest last week, and Vezhenkova went 3-0 at No. 1 singles and 2-0 in doubles and is 9-0 in singles and 8-1 in doubles for the season.

• Sewanee freshman Annie Veron was the Southern Athletic Association women's tennis player of the week for her 5-1 record in matches against nationally ranked Redlands and Carnegie Mellon and SAA rival Centre. She went 3-0 in doubles with Julia Wood and won at No. 4 singles against Carnegie and at No. 3 against Centre.

Baseball

• Lee University won 16-1 with a 10-run seventh inning as the Flames and Southern Polytechnic began their SSAC baseball series early Thursday evening. Josh Silver was 3-for-3 with four RBIs and Chris Avey was 3-for-5 with a home run and three RBIs for the Flames (24-7, 13-3), while Mark Silva and Brandon Rader each had three hits and three runs and had three doubles between them.

Softball

• Bryan College lost 11-2 and 5-4 in eight innings to visiting Cumberland University in an NAIA softball doubleheader Thursday. Rachel Kirby and Katelyn Bowen had the RBIs in the first game for the Lady Lions (8-14). Kirstie Jennings was 2-for-4 with a triple, a double and an RBI in game two, when Bowen was 2-for-3 and Katie Vaughn scored twice. Wednesday in two losses to fourth-ranked Rogers State, Kirby had two hits and two RBIs in game one and Jill Davis had two hits, three RBIs and two runs with Christine Marino's four hits and two runs in game two.

• Sewanee defeated Fisk 11-4 and 12-3 in NCAA Division III softball Thursday at Sewanee. Kayla Sewell went 4-for-4 with a triple, four RBIs and three runs in the first game, when Sarah Fleming also scored three runs and matched Sarah Anne Hamilton and Grace Cobbs with two hits. Michelle Thibodeaux drove in two and Cooper Killen pitched a four-hitter with 13 strikeouts. In game two for the Tigers (5-5), Fleming was 4-for-4 with three runs, Hamilton drove in four and pitched a three-hitter with seven strikeouts and Sewell was 2-for-4 with two RBIs and two runs.

• Covenant's Morgan Lane from GPS was the GSAC softball player of the week for last week after batting .466 (7-for-15) with two doubles, three RBIs and three runs scored in three games. She had five hits in a doubleheader against Birmingham-Southern.

Lacrosse

• The Sewanee lacrosse teams both blasted visiting Benedictine from Illinois on Wednesday, the women by a program-record 20-1 margin and the men winning 19-5. Mallory Grimm had four goals and two assists and Molly Arnold had four assists for the female Tigers (6-4), and Michael Morris had four goals and four assists for the Sewanee men (6-2).