Category: Sports

Local prep football teams laced up the equipment on Monday as teams were allowed to commence full contact practices for the year. Westwood, coached by Chad Dyer, worked on some fundamentals and had a session of live scrimmaging as they prepare for their Blue/White game on Thursday night at 7 PM and a their jamboree appearance on Friday at Cascade vs. Forrest. The Coffee County Middle School Raiders, under the direction of Brock Freeze, also spent time practicing for their first scrimmage game coming up on Thursday at 5 PM as they will play host to Rock Springs. Coffee County Central opened their first full contact fall practice under the direction of new head coach Ryan Sulkowski. The Raiders will get almost 2 full weeks of practice prior to their first scrimmage on August 8th at home against White County.

Thirteen year old Ashley Gilliam of Manchester won the TGA Tournament of Champions at The Golf Club of Tennessee on July 22-23. Ashley shot 71-78 for a two day total of 149 for a four stroke victory in the season ending championship. Invitations to the Tournament of Champions are based on scoring average for the season.
Ashley also took home Player of the Year honors after finishing the season ranked #1 in scoring average and winning 3 of 5 tournaments she entered and finishing 2nd in the other two.

The Tennessee Titans began their first training camp under the direction of new coach Ken Whisenhunt this weekend at Saint Thomas Sports Park in Nashville. Rookies and veterans hit the field on Saturday in front of a huge contingent of Titan fans. Fans of the Titans are invited to watch any seven remaining training camp practices free of charge. The remaining practices that are open to the public are July 28, Aug. 1, 3, 6, 11 and 12 at Baptist Sports Park. Also, the Titans will practice on August 4th in Flowery Branch, Ga, Training camp is the only time of the year that practices are open to the general public. The Titans will play their first preseason game on August 9th at LP Field as they host Green Bay in a 7 PM contest. As always, Thunder Radio is your exclusive radio home in Coffee County to hear the broadcasts of Titans football.

The high school golf season opened on Thursday with the Wildcat Tournament at the Tullahoma Country Club.
In girls play the Coffee County Lady Raiders won the championship with a score of 148. Hollee Sadler led the way with a 73 over 18-holes and Savannah Quick scored a 75. Sadler won the individual tournament with Quick finishing 3rd.
Next up for the ladies is a tournament in Lawrenceburg on Monday.
In boys play the Raiders played well with a score of 323. Jacob Prater had the low round for Coffee County with a 78 followed by John Parigger with a 79, Hayden Proffit 80 and Justin Hall with an 86.
The boys and girls teams will play Shelbyville, Tullahoma and Franklin County on Thursday the 31st in Winchester.

Former Motlow College basketball player and men’s assistant coach Dominic Tharpe is hard at work after being named the new head coach of the Lady Bucks’ program in early July.
His first order of business was to hold an open tryout on Saturday, July 19, at Copperweld Arena on the Motlow Moore County campus. He then appeared on the Sports Plus radio talk show recently on ‘The Ticket’ sports radio in Tullahoma (our sister station), Motlow’s flagship broadcast outlet, and expressed how happy he was to be back in southern Middle Tennessee.
With the start of classes at Motlow College still a month away, the roster that Tharpe inherits in his first season is still very fluid. It appears a majority of the sophomores who played last year will return for their second season. Tharpe is familiar with them and sees the potential for improvement.
Tharpe’s first Lady Bucks team will begin preseason workouts in late August, and then hit the Copperweld Arena floor for the official start of practice Oct. 1. Although Motlow’s 2014-15 basketball schedule has not yet been announced, the season traditionally begins the final week of October.

There has been a lot of excitement generated around the Motlow Bucks’ basketball program since last season ended with a one-point, double-overtime loss in the semifinals of the Region VII Tournament.
From the moment rising sophomore Dequon Miller, an All-American last season and the top-rated junior college point guard in the country, announced he would return to Moore County for a second year, the possibilities for a special season increased substantially.
Head Coach Matt Sligh has done his part in surrounding Miller, and the half-dozen other returning sophomores, with a talented group of incoming freshmen. The potential of the freshman class recently spiked again with the announcement that Jaylen Barford will join the Motlow roster for the coming season.
Barford is a 6’3” dynamic guard from South Side High School in Jackson, Tenn. All he did was lead his Hawks team to the Class AA state championship last season while averaging 22.5 points and seven rebounds per game. He is ranked by most recruiting services among the top ten high school players in the state.
Barford is the latest proven winner that Sligh has added to the Bucks’ basketball family. In leading South Side to its championship last season, he scored the game-winning basket in the state semifinals to beat defending champion Christ Presbyterian Academy; a team that had won 94 consecutive games against in-state opponents and had beaten South Side for the state championship the previous season. South Side then beat East Nashville, and fellow Motlow signee Terry Holt, 91-83 in double overtime for the school’s first basketball state championship. Barford scored 25 points for the Hawks in the title game while Holt had 26 for East Nashville.
The Bucks will soon assemble as a team in Lynchburg with the fall semester scheduled to begin Aug. 25. Official practice traditionally begins for National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) basketball teams on Oct. 1, with the regular season opening the final week of October.

The Manchester Blue, the 9&10 year-old all-star baseball team won the Tennessee Youth Baseball Association open division state championship on Sunday.

On Sunday in Manchester the local Elite Conditioning softball team won the SEAA softball World Series title at Dave King Park.

In the first year of the Manchester Youth Baseball League’s association with TYBA saw all 6 teams place in the Final 4 of the state tournament and was highlighted by a state championship for the 11 and 12 year old all-stars this past Sunday. The Manchester squad went undefeated on the week-end finishing with a record of 5 and 0.
Battling rain delays and wet fields on Friday and Saturday, the Red and Black got wins over Woodbury, Christiana and Murfreesboro to earn the number one seed in Sunday’s championship bracket. A rematch started the title run for Manchester on Sunday as they got a much anticipated rematch with Murfreesboro. Manchester banged out 12 hits in the first 2 innings and coasted to a 14 to 7 win over the Vandals of Murfreesboro. Jake Hollandsworth was 2 for 2 on the game with a home run and 4 RBI. Cody Eslinger had 2 hits and 3 RBI and got the win on the mound.
The Championship game saw Manchester take on the #2 seeded, and other unbeaten team, DeKalb County. DeKalb came out hot in the top of the 1st inning scoring a run as they banged out a pair of hits, but it was Manchester’s game from that point forward. The Red & Black scored 7 runs in the bottom of the first inning and the game was never close again as Manchester won 15 to 1. Augie Burch had 2 home runs and 5 RBI on the night to lead the Manchester hitting attack. Isaiah Owens got the start on the bump pitching 3 innings to get the win striking out 5.

Coffee County High School senior golfer Hollee Sadler only started playing golf when she was a freshman and joined the Lady Raiders team as a sophomore. Sadler earned the right to play in the TSSAA state golf tournament as an individual as a sophomore and was joined by her teammates last season. Hollee has a lot on her mind as her senior season begins on Thursday with a tournament in Tullahoma. She would love to repeat as district and region champs and return to state. One thing Sadler will not have on her mind will be where she will attend college, as she has verbally committed to Tennessee Tech. Hollee wants to follow in her Dad’s footsteps by becoming an engineer.
Sadler will be the 11^th Raider golfer to sign in just the past 6 years. Coach Mike Ray says he expects one more player to sign by the end of the year.

After going 2 and 1 in the pool play round of the 7&8 year old TYBA State Tournament on Friday and Saturday, the Manchester All-Stars looked to be primed for a long run in the championship bracket on Sunday. They opened the day with a 14 to 8 come-from-behind win over the Shelbyville Storm on Sunday morning to move into the semifinals.
The Red & Black got on the board first in the bottom of the first inning scoring 7 runs as they sent 10 batters to the plate.  Shelbyville battled back to take a short lived 8 to 7 lead before Manchester added 6 more runs in the 3rd to put the game away. Knox Wimberly was 3 for 3 with 3 runs scored for Manchester.
In the semifinals, they ran into a hot hitting Murfreesboro Storm team that eliminated them by a final score of 18 to 8. With the loss, the 7&8’s finished the tournament with a record of 3 and 2 and finished in 3rd place for the tournament.