LOCALS IN COLLEGE NOTEBOOK: Lawrence, Martin shine for Concord

Tim Hayes/Bristol Herald Courier
Published: May 12, 2008

BY TIM HAYES

Bristol Herald Courier

The Concord (W.Va.) University softball team struggled for wins this season. However, a pair of sluggers from Southwest Virginia emerged as top performers for the Mountain Lions.

Catcher Bobi Lawrence (Marion) and infielder Kalen Martin (Northwood) were among the top hitters for Concord, a NCAA Division II school.

Lawrence hit .247 and drove in seven runs. She went 5-for-9 during Concord’s three games in the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament.

Meanwhile, Martin hit .148 with three home runs and recorded a team-high 14 RBIs.

Davis headed to NCAA Tourney

Virginia Tech outfielder Whitney Davis, a Tazewell High School graduate, is headed back to the NCAA Division I softball tournament.

Davis and the Hokies will play Louisville on Friday in Knoxville in the opening round of the NCAA tourney. Tech (44-15) won its second straight Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championship over the weekend.

Davis is hitting .188 with eight RBIs and 11 runs scored in 48 games for Tech. The headliner for the Hokies continues to be senior pitcher Angela Tincher, who is 33-6 with two saves and a 0.57 ERA. During her record-setting career at James River High School in Buchanan, Tincher compiled a 9-0 record against teams from Southwest Virginia.

Belcher’s Bat

Abingdon High School graduate Nick Belcher is hitting .273 with five home runs and 20 RBIs for the struggling East Tennessee State University baseball team.

Grimm: SEC Champion

Justin Grimm’s freshman season at the University of Georgia has included a Southeastern Conference regular-season baseball title.

Eighth-ranked Georgia (33-17-1, 19-7-1) clinched the SEC crown with a 12-10 win over Vanderbilt on Sunday in Nashville.

Grimm allowed four runs on four hits in 1 2/3 innings of relief in the Bulldogs’ victory and the Virginia High graduate is 0-1 with an 8.10 ERA in 13 games (six starts) this season.

News on Nidiffer

Former Tennessee High standout Marcus Nidiffer went 1-for-5 and scored two runs on Sunday as the University of Kentucky crushed rival Tennessee, 20-5, and completed a three-game sweep of the Volunteers in Knoxville.

Nidiffer is hitting .237 with five home runs and 17 RBIs this season for UK.

THS player helps Tusculum

Tusculum College recently won the South Atlantic Conference baseball tournament and the Pioneers will open play in the NCAA Division II South Regional on Thursday.

A pair of players from Northeast Tennessee have contributed for the Pioneers.

Tennessee High graduate Nick Howington has compiled a .313 batting average (5-for-16) with two runs scored and a RBI in 10 games.

Meanwhile, Aaron Hudgins (Sullivan South) is hitting .263 with 17 RBIs and 11 stolen bases for the Pioneers.

Stallard finishes sixth

Freshman Tonya Stallard (Virginia High) helped the Army women’s track and field team take the team title at the Patriot League championships on May 2-3 in Annapolis, Md.

Stallard finished sixth in the 100 hurdles with a time of 15.34 seconds. Army beat Lafayette by 11 points for the team crown.

Record-Setting Place

Stephanie Place set a Tennessee Tech school record on May 3 at the Ohio Valley Conference track and field championships in Missouri. The record she broke happened to be her own.

The former Tennessee High star finished second in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 17:05.83. It bested her previous mark by two seconds and completed an eventful weekend for the junior. She also placed second in the 10K.

Tennis Season ends for Locals

The Carson-Newman and Tusculum women’s tennis teams were eliminated over the weekend in the NCAA Division II Southeast Region tournament in Florida. That also meant the end of the season for several local players competing for the schools.

Carson-Newman suffered a 5-0 setback to Lynn University. Tennessee High graduate Emily Sorah teamed with Stephanie Douglas to drop an 8-0 decision to Lynn’s Alisson Sinci and Eleonora Iannozzi.

Meanwhile, Tusculum was eliminated after suffering a 5-0 decision to Rollins College.

Katelyn Doss (Virginia High) and Blake Thompson (Tennessee High) both lost in both singles and doubles for the Pioneers.

Rollins’ Roshni Luthra posted a 6-0, 6-0 decision over Doss, while Thompson was defeated by Margaret Junker by the same score.

In doubles, Doss and Caroline Crowe suffered an 8-2 loss to Marnie Bahler and Luthra. Thompson and Brownyn Hartley were dispatched 8-0 by the team of Silvia Frandji and Anastasiya Shevchenko.

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