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Alex Anderson named SoCon Female Athlete of the Year

Alex Anderson, two-time Southern Conference women’s basketball Player of the Year, was named the 2008 Southern Conference Female Athlete of the Year. The honor was announced at the league’s Annual Honors Dinner.

A native of Stone Mountain, Georgia, Anderson made history this season as the first female basketball player in the Southern Conference to be selected in the WNBA draft. She was a third-round pick, the 39th overall, by the San Antonio Silver Stars. She also made history in the SoCon as the first player in league history to be named the Player of the Year and tournament MVP in back-to-back seasons.

This year Anderson led the Lady Mocs to their ninth consecutive Southern Conference title and third straight NCAA Tournament appearance. She led the league in scoring and rebounding this year and closed out her career at Chattanooga ranked fifth in scoring with more than 1,700 points. She became just the second player in school history to amass more than 1,000 career rebounds and is the school shot block leader with 221. She was named the league Player of the Month three times and Player of the Week six times, matching the league mark she set last year.

A psychology major, Anderson was a member of SoCon All-Academic Team and she has been a participant in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure for Breast Cancer Awareness for four years. This year, she volunteered her time serving at the Chattanooga Food Bank and Community Kitchen. Anderson conducted a basketball clinic at the Bethel Bible Village and served as a mentor to inner city youth with the Shandon Anderson Foundation. She also participated in 2007 in a Habitat for Humanity home build.

Anderson is the third consecutive Chattanooga student-athlete to earn the league’s Athlete of the Year. Last year, Lanni Marchant earned was the recipient of the award and Shannon Wommack was honored in 2006. Marchant was a standout on the Mocs track & field and cross country teams as was Wommack who was a five-time All-American and two time Academic All-America.

Mocs teams enjoy springtime success

The athletics programs had a strong spring with two Southern Conference Championships and four NCAA appearances. The men’s golf and softball programs captured team titles in the SoCon and moved on to NCAA Regional play, while women’s golfer Emma de Groot and men’s track and field runner Michael Mentz earned individual NCAA Regional berths.

In the NCAA Women’s Golf East Regional, de Groot, a freshman, impressed in finishing tied for 17th. She completed her season ranked No. 40 in the Golfstat Cup leading the Lady Mocs to a 114-45-3 record, and four team wins, in the program’s first season in over 20 years. She was an All-SoCon selection leading the league in scoring average (74.06).

Mentz, a senior, qualified to compete at the NCAA Mideast Regional in Fayetteville, Ark. He earned his spot by capturing the 1500-meter run at the SoCon Championships with a time of 3:57.17. He is a seven-time all-conference performer, three times in outdoor track.

The Lady Mocs softball team won its 10th SoCon regular-season title and ninth conference tournament title. UTC completed its season 41-22 (13-5 SoCon), losing 8-0 to College World Series participant Alabama and 5-3 to Florida State, in extra innings, at the NCAA tournament.

Head Coach Frank Reed was named SoCon Coach of the Year, his second such honor, while sophomore Brooke Loudermilk earned Pitcher of the Year honors for the second consecutive year. Loudermilk was selected to the Louisville Slugger/NFCA South Region All-District Second Team as well as ESPN the Magazine Academic All-District Third Team.

The men’s golf program finished its season with a school-record five tournament wins, including defending its SoCon title from 2007. The Mocs forged a final record of 158-42-4 overall, 25-0-0 against conference opposition. The Mocs are currently ranked No. 12 in the Golfweek/Sagarin Ratings Index and finished No. 14 in the Golf World/Nike Golf Coaches poll.

Head Coach Mark Guhne won his third SoCon Coach of the Year honor in three years, while junior Jonathan Hodge repeated as Player of the Year. Hodge, ranked No. 20 in the Golfstat Cup, and Derek Rende were named to the PING All-Region Team for the South.

SoCon Germann Cup awarded for Best All-Around Women’s Sports Program

With five Southern Conference championships in the 2007-08 academic year, UTC claimed the 2008 Germann Cup, presented annually to the school which produces the SoCon’s best all-around women’s sports program.

Schools earn points based upon its teams’ regular-season finishes. Bonus points are awarded to the team that wins the conference tournament.

The Chattanooga women’s sports programs captured regular-season titles in basketball, and softball and won tournament or postseason championships in basketball, cross country and softball.

“I said when I was hired two years ago that one of our goals was to have a broad-based athletics program,” Athletics Director Rick Hart said. “Winning this year’s Germann Cup is certainly reflective of our commitment to excellence in all sports. It is also a testament to the quality of our coaching staff and our student-athletes. This is a tremendous accomplishment.”

The softball team’s twin titles clinched the Cup for Chattanooga. After claiming the regular-season crown, the Lady Mocs, under Head Coach Frank Reed, won six of seven SoCon Tournament games, including three on Championship Saturday, to win their ninth Tournament title in 15 years.

Overall, the Lady Mocs edged second-place Furman for the Cup by 4.5 points, 74.5 to 70 for Furman. Chattanooga recorded fourth-place finishes or better in six of the nine sports in which it competes, including a tie for third place in volleyball and fourth-place finishes for both indoor and outdoor track and field.

The women’s golf team, in its first year of competition in more than 20 years, registered a fifth-place finish at the SoCon Championships with first-year Head Coach Colette Murray at the controls.

Women’s basketball has been the anchor of the Chattanooga women’s programs for nearly a decade. The Lady Mocs, under Head Coach Wes Moore, won its ninth straight SoCon regular-season title and seventh SoCon Tournament crown in 2008.

Bill Gautier’s cross country team repeated as SoCon Champions at the league meet in October, and his track and field teams pulled out fourth-place finishes at both the indoor and outdoor SoCon meets without competing in field events.

Lisa Rhodes’ volleyball squad took third place in the regular season and reached the conference tournament semifinal match. The soccer team, coached by J.D. Kyzer, competed with no seniors or juniors on the roster, and first-year Head Coach Jeff Clark’s women’s tennis team earned an eighth-place SoCon finish.

The Chattanooga women’s programs finished second in the Germann Cup standings to Furman for eight consecutive years from 1996-97 to 2003-04. The Lady Mocs placed fourth, fifth and fifth respectively over the last three years.

The men’s programs, which won the Commissioner’s Cup, the men’s equivalent, in 2005, placed third in this year’s all-sports rankings. With 68.5 points, the Mocs trailed top-finisher Appalachian State, which compiled 84 points, and Furman, 73 points. The Chattanooga men have finished among the top three schools in the overall standings in each of the past five years.

Athletics boasts NCAA Academic Progress Rate improvements

The Athletics Department made significant improvements in its NCAA Academic Progress Rate for the 2006-07 academic year. The NCAA reported the Chattanooga sports of wrestling and football produced single-year APR score improvements of 145 and 112 points respectively, both meeting NCAA benchmarks.

The APR was developed to better assess a team’s academic performance as opposed to the graduation rate calculation. The system awards two points each term to student-athletes who meet academic-eligibility standards and who remain with the institution. A team’s APR is the total points earned by the team at a given time divided by the total points possible.

“We have worked extremely hard with our coaching staffs and with our administrators to give them a better understanding of how this formula is calculated and how it can impact our programs,” Athletics Director Rick Hart said. “We have initiated educational tools for our coaches and our student-athletes to assist in their academic successes and retention and are certainly proud of the advancement we have made from last year to this year.

“While we are pleased that our efforts have resulted in short-term success, this cannot be a one-time thing. We must continue to be diligent in this area to ensure that our upward progress continues for all sports.”

The Athletics Department has taken several steps to improve its academic progress including the development of a formal APR improvement plan with input from University faculty and staff, participation in NCAA and Southern Conference training and educational seminars, meeting biannually with all student-athletes and providing guest speakers and seminars in education and career guidance, assigning a department representative to the Campus Retention Committee, providing academic coaches to teams, performing a closer monitoring system for current and incoming student-athlete academic progress and increasing its financial commitment to summer school and post-eligibility aid.

The UTC student-athlete graduation rate continues to be higher than that of the overall UTC student body, and the May 2008 commencement ceremony included 27 student-athletes—among them were seven former football players and five former wrestlers.

The APR calculates a multi-year figure over a four-year academic period with 925 points out of a possible 1,000 points being the benchmark. In Tuesday’s public report, wrestling’s multi-year score rose to 883 and football’s rose to 855.

Retention also figures into the APR formula, and both these sports have been penalized over the last few years for student-athletes leaving the programs for various reasons. In the case of the wrestling team, a coaching change after the 2005-06 season contributed greatly to a low score the following year. The wrestling team earned a perfect APR score of 1,000 for the Fall 2007 semester.

While both football and wrestling remain in the penalty phase, each program was given a slight reprieve from the NCAA due to the significant improvements each made over the course of the year.

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