Monday ends the 2 week dead period for prep sports in local area schools. The local fall sports teams will resume conditioning and begin practices in some cases.
The CHS golf team will once again tee off the fall season as they open with their first official practice at 11 AM at Willowbrook. The Raider linksters, who return 3 golfers that participated in last season’s state tournament, will open their season on August 2nd in Cookeville after a preseason tournament in Tullahoma on July 21st.
The CHS Red Raider football team will resume summer conditioning on Monday at 9 AM as the football players will return to the weight room. Coffee County will don the pads on July 25th as they prepare to open the season on August 19th at Tullahoma.
The CHS volleyball team will get their preseason underway as they will host a skills camp at the Joe Frank Patch Memorial Gym from 9 to 3 each day this week. The Lady Raiders, who will also host the middle school team, will get instruction from a former volleyball coach at MTSU.
The Lady Raider soccer team will hit the pitch bright and early at 8 AM for their first official practice. The Lady Raiders will be traveling to Cleveland, Tennessee on Wednesday for a team camp at Lee University. The Lady Raiders open the regular season on August 16th when they play host to Smyrna.
The CHS Red Raider soccer team will be holding tryouts on Monday and Tuesday night from 7 to 9 PM at the Raider soccer field. This tryout is for new players and incoming freshmen. The Red Raiders will also get in a few summer session practices on Wednesday through Friday.
Out at Coffee County Middle school, the football team will have their first practice beginning at 5 PM on Monday night at the CCMS practice field. Coach Bryan Morgan begins his first season at the helm of the Red Raider program. He will also host a parents’ meeting immediately following practice. The Red Raiders will practice from 8 to 10 each morning the rest of the week.
The Coffee County Middle School Lady Raider soccer team will hit the pitch from 8:30 – 10 on Monday. The defending CTC champions will open their regular season on August the 16th in McMinnville. Coffee County will host a scrimmage playday on Saturday August 13th.
Brock Freeze will hold a voluntary baseball practice on Tuesday afternoon at 5:30 PM. Coach Freeze begins his first season at the helm of the CCMS baseball team as he is seeking to get in a scrimmage game late in the week.
The CCMS Volleyball opens their preseason practices as they will join the high school team for a skills camp at the Joe Frank Patch Memorial Gym. The Lady Raiders will be under the direction of new head coach Malaysha Hickerson Pack and new assistant coach Tori Taylor. Coach Pack will be a guest on the Coffee Coaches Show later in the month of July.
At Westwood, the Rocket football team will don the pads on Monday morning beginning at 8 AM for a full contact workout. Coach Chad Dyer is looking to review practice and safety procedures with his young Rocket squad while beginning to implement Westwood’s offensive and defensive schemes. The Rockets will host their annual Blue/White game on Thursday, August 4th. The Rockets open the season at home on August 11th against the Forrest Rockets.
The Westwood Lady Rocket soccer team will begin workouts on Tuesday as they prepare to defend their regular season conference championship from 2015. Coach Donna Burdine will begin the preseason practices with a skills camp hosted by Johnathan Graf. The camp action begins on Tuesday and will go through Thursday. The Lady Rockets open their season on August 18th when they travel to Cascade.
The cross country teams from Westwood, Coffee Middle and Central High will all begin official practices later in the month.

Mike Foltynewicz became the local-kid-done-good story Sunday afternoon, as he shut out the White Sox over seven innings during the Braves’ 2-0 victory at U.S. Cellular Field. The victory for Atlanta ended the White Sox stretch of series victories at five straight.

Foltynewicz, who hails from Minooka, Ill., a southwest suburb of Chicago, struck out a career-high 10 and yielded five hits among his 106 pitches. Atlanta catcher and former White Sox backstop Tyler Flowers spoke Friday about the excellence of Foltynewicz’s raw stuff, and he proved that point true when he concluded his outing with three strikeouts during a 1-2-3 seventh inning.
“This is a really aggressive-hitting team and with it being a day game, I thought they might be swinging even more,” Foltynewicz said. “I just let the defense do the work. When I got ahead, I finally put them away today.”
“He was fantastic. He has great stuff,” White Sox manager Robin Ventura said of Foltynewicz. “The velocity, the control that he had and a good breaking pitch. It was tough. Our guys just couldn’t get on it and any time we got something going, he snuffed it out.”
James Shields took the loss, but certainly pitched well enough to win. The right-hander gave up two runs on six hits over 7 2/3 innings, striking out two and walking two. The lone runs coming against Shields among his 93 pitches were solo home runs by Jeff Francoeur in the second and Jace Peterson in the third.
Jim Johnson worked a scoreless ninth inning to get the save for the Braves, who won three of four in Chicago, including Thursday’s makeup game against the Cubs. Atlanta manager Brian Snitker said he stayed away from Arodys Vizcaino in the ninth because of an irritation on his right elbow. Johnson got a double-play to end the game.
“We felt good and we put good swings on the ball,” Francoeur said. “I definitely didn’t think just a couple solo shots would be enough, but it was. Good for us.”
“I was being aggressive in the zone, attacking the hitters with the fastball early, trying to keep ahead in the count,” Shields said. “I got behind in the count with a few hitters there, but really I only made two bad pitches today, and unfortunately we lost the game.”
The Braves rank last in the Majors in home runs, but they took advantage of their surroundings as they belted eight home runs this weekend, marking the first time since their 2009 season-opening series in Philadelphia that they recorded this many home runs in a three-game set. Francoeur tallied his second homer of this series with one out in the second and Peterson added to Shields’ frustration when he tallied his third homer since June 28 with a two-out solo shot in the third.
“We swung the bats well,” Snitker said. “Chicago was good to us this trip. It was one of those series when every time the ball went up in the air, it was either going to pierce a gap or go over the wall. Our guys swung the bat well. We played a really good series.”
It took Tim Anderson two at-bats Sunday to produce his 14th multihit game among 28 played for the White Sox. Anderson singled in the first but was caught stealing and singled again in the third. Anderson also turned an unassisted double play in the eighth to help keep the deficit at two.
“You are looking at a kid that has improved so much over the course of time we have had him,” said Ventura of Anderson. “Now he has the talent to stick here. He has the talent to do some special things. You are starting to see some of it and just range and also just his character. That’s another thing that is very good for our team that we’ve been able to add him.”
Atlanta had chances to extend their lead in the fifth and the sixth, but Shields shut them down both times. A.J. Pierzynski doubled and moved to third on Brett Lawrie’s error with one out in the fifth, only to have Erick Aybar hit into a double play. Shields walked two in the sixth, with the runners advancing to second and third with one out on a wild pitch. But Shields retired Nick Markakis on a grounder to first baseman Jose Abreu and struck out Francoeur.
“I just go start-by-start, honestly. I don’t put too much emphasis on any start,” Shields said. “Even when I was struggling, I wasn’t putting too much emphasis on any start. Being consistent and being on the same page as Navi (Dioner Navarro) back there, it has been great.”
Pierzynski’s fifth inning double was the 400th of his career, allowing him to join Pudge Rodriguez, Ted Simmons and Carlton Fisk as the only catchers to ever reach this milestone. This might have been the final game the 39-year-old catcher played at U.S. Cellular Field. He recorded 198 doubles while playing for the White Sox from 2005-12.
Before Pierzynski caught Anderson attempting to swipe second base in the first inning, opponents had been successful with 32 consecutive stolen base attempts against Braves’ catchers dating back to May 26. Opponents have been successful with 66 of 73 stolen base attempts against Atlanta’s catchers. .
The White Sox ended the first half at 45-43, marking the first time they were over .500 at this point since 2012 (47-38).
Atlanta will begin the second half of the season on Friday night, when it welcomes Colorado to Turner Field for the start of a three-game series. The Braves will not announce Friday’s starting pitcher until they see whether Julio Teheran pitches in Tuesday night’s All-Star Game.  Thunder Radio will bring you the broadcast on Friday as part of the Braves Radio Network.

Dillon Overton and Bruce Maxwell helped the Nashville Sounds snap a four-game skid with an 8-2 win over the New Orleans Zephyrs in front of 5,604 fans Sunday afternoon at First Tennessee Park.

With the win, Nashville heads into the Triple-A All-Star break with a 49-42 record and on top of the American Southern Division.

Overton was brilliant once again as the left-hander tallied his ninth consecutive win while pitching with Nashville. Since May 17, Overton has won every game he has taken the mound. He allowed two runs on eight hits over seven innings and improved his record to 10-4 on the season.

He retired the first 11 batters he faced before Xavier Scruggs reached on an infield single in the fourth. By that time the Sounds had built a sizeable lead for him to work with.

It started in the second when Joey Wendle reached on an infield single. After consecutive walks issued to Colin Walsh and Matt Olson, a sacrifice fly by Maxwell gave the Sounds a 1-0 lead.

Arismendy Alcantara followed with a single to right field that scored Walsh with the second run of the inning.

The rally continued in the third with a five-run outburst. New Orleans starter Asher Wojciechowski retired the first two batters of the inning before the wheels fell off.

He issued back-to-back walks to Renato Nunez and Wendle before four straight hits brought in five runs. The big hit came from Maxwell when he belted a two-run double high off the right field wall.

Maxwell chipped in another run with an RBI single in the fifth to make it an 8-1 game. He finished the day 2-for-3 and matched a career-high four RBI.

Isaac Galloway clubbed a solo homer in the top of the seventh to give New Orleans their final run of the game.

J.B. Wendelken and Ryan Brasier threw scoreless innings in the eighth and ninth to send the Sounds into the break on a high note.

Alcantara went 3-for-5 with a pair of RBI and Walsh joined in with his second straight multi-hit game.

The Sounds have a three day break over the Triple-A All-Star break and resume play on Thursday, July 14. They head to El Paso, Texas for a four-game series with the Chihuahuas before going to Albuquerque for a four-game set with the Isotopes.

With Jose Quintana and Julio Teheran on the mound Saturday afternoon at U.S. Cellular Field, the contest between the Braves and White Sox figured to be a low-scoring affair. Teheran had received the fewest amount of runs per game at 2.5 and Quintana ranked third at 2.9 among qualified pitchers.

But it was Todd Frazier and the White Sox offense that outlasted the Braves in a 5-4 victory to even the series at one game apiece and give the White Sox a chance for their sixth straight series win going into the All-Star break.
Frazier, who will be defending his crown in Monday’s T-Mobile Home Run Derby at Petco Park, hit his 25th homer and knocked an RBI double to pace Chicago’s attack against All-Star righty Teheran.
“I feel stronger, I feel more relaxed, a little quicker swing,” Frazier said. “For me, it’s hitting good pitches. I say this all the time, if I’m swinging outside the zone, I’m going to have some trouble. I feel really good at the plate right now.”

After suffering through a seven-game losing streak and a stretch of nine starts without a victory, Quintana won for a second straight time despite yielding four runs and three home runs over six innings, while striking out five.
Teheran allowed two runs in the second and three in the third, but settled down to pitch scoreless baseball over the next three. He struck out two and walked one. The contest marked the first in Major League history started by a pair of Colombian-born pitchers.
“I felt excited for that. Teheran is my friend, and we have a good relationship. I enjoyed this game, and I take the win,” Quintana said. “A lot of Colombians were here for this game. That’s never happened. That’s good for my country. I think we have better baseball now. That’s good for us. I’m really proud for that.”
“Both of them have great stuff, and I know there’s a lot of pride in Colombia about those guys both going out there,” White Sox manager Robin Ventura said. “It was well-pitched.”
Nate Jones recorded a four-out save, striking out three, and stranding the bases loaded in the ninth after runners got to second and third with one out. Closer David Robertson was unavailable due to a high strain in his left leg.
Gordon Beckham, Freddie Freeman and Jeff Francoeur went deep for the Braves.
“We had some good at-bats today,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “We just kept coming back at them. We gave ourselves a good chance. We had the go-ahead run at second base. We were just a hit away.”
Frazier put in a little Derby practice work Saturday with a two-run shot in the second. It marked the second straight day Frazier went deep, giving him 25 for the season. Frazier finished with three RBIs and took a hit away from A.J. Pierzynski — who entered after Tyler Flowers exited with an injury — to lead off the fifth.
After notching nine extra-base hits (including three homers against Chris Sale) on Friday, the Braves added three more home runs against Quintana. Beckham’s first-inning solo shot against his former team was his third homer within a span of 40 at-bats. Freeman’s sixth-inning solo shot was the seventh homer he’s totaled within his past 26 games. Before totaling six homers through the first two games against Chicago, Atlanta had not totaled more than three homers in a three-game series this season. Their previous series-high total was four, produced in a four-game set in Pittsburgh.
“We’ve been playing better baseball now for a month or month and a half,” Freeman said. “It’s nice to go into the All-Star break swinging the bats well. It was another close game today. It’s just unfortunate we didn’t come up with another run right there.”
The Braves had moved to within one run in the sixth against Quintana and had Nick Markakis on first with one out, but Brett Lawrie turned in an inning-ending web gem at second. Lawrie dove toward first on a grounder hit by Francoeur and got up to throw him out and cut short any further damage.
Teheran surrendered Frazier’s two-run homer, which was nearly prevented by Ender Inciarte, in the second and then allowed hits to five of the first six batters he faced during a three-run third inning. But the All-Star hurler then retired 10 of the final 11 batters he faced during his six-inning, five-run effort. Teheran was pitching for the first time since being sent back to Atlanta earlier this week to undergo treatment for a right thigh infection.
“Whenever you give up five runs in the first three innings, you [want] to finish strong” Teheran said. “That’s what I was able to do. I made one mistake with the homer, and the other three runs, I think they hit good pitches.”
Atlanta and Chicago will conclude the first half of the season when they meet in the finale of this three-game series on Sunday at 1:10 p.m. CT. Chicago-area native Mike Foltynewicz will start for the Braves. Foltynewicz has made two starts since spending most of June sidelined because of a bone spur in his right elbow.  Thunder Radio will bring you coverage of the game on the Atlanta Braves Radio Network beginning at 12 PM with the pregame show..