Sports
May 21, 2025 by Bill Howard, Correspondent
KINGSPORT — On the road against Dobyns-Bennett High School in a best-of-three Sectional series with a state trip on the line, the Farragut Admirals split the first two games with the Indians. The season came down to a do-or-die game three.
FHS prevailed 7-3 Thursday, May 15. The chance for yet another state title remains alive.
In the deciding game — after winning 10-0 Wednesday, May 14, before falling 10-3 despite an Owen Stelzer homer earlier in the day Thursday — Stelzer’s three-run homer in the top of the second gave FHS a 3-0 lead. Jackson Zeller made it 4-0 in the third with a run-scoring single.
Pinch-hitter Nash Spurgeon’s RBI-single in the fourth increased the lead to 5-0. The Indians (31-10 record) cut it to 5-2 in the fifth, but Braxton Tye’s double pushed the lead to 6-2 in the sixth. KDB cut it to 6-3, but Braden Humphrey’s RBI completed the scoring in the seventh.
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May 21, 2025 by Alan Sloan
JOHNSON CITY— A huge lesson learned from 2024 paved the way for Farragut softball to reach Murfreesboro and the Division I-4A State Tournament.
“What we didn’t want to happen, and what I really stressed at the end of the Halls game,” an 8-1 Region 2-4A title-game home loss Thursday, May 15, “don’t let the Halls game beat us twice like it did last year,’” Lady Ads skipper Nick Green said after his team’s resounding 10-3 Sectional win at Region 1-4A champ Science Hill Friday, May 16. “We lost to Halls (in 2024), then we carried that over into the sectional game.
“We needed to focus on Science Hill,” he added. “Collectively, it was just our intensity. That was a big deal. We were ready to play right out the gate.”
First-inning singles by Logan Jameson and Rylee Raby came before Elsa Morrison’s sac fly. And then, sophomore staff ace and winning pitcher Halley Grace Johnson “hits the first pitch out for two-run homer, and immediately we’re up 3-0,” Green said. “So that was huge, coming right out of the gate and scoring.”
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May 21, 2025 by Alan Sloan
HARDIN VALLEY — With all the scoring, once again, coming from senior forward Ben Brophy, Hardin Valley Academy built on its 2-1 Region 2-AAA title victory at Bearden — unlike last season — and earned a Division I-AAA state berth in Murfreesboro this week after edging a tough Sevier County team 2-1 in Sectional play at HVA Saturday evening, May 17.
With the BHS SoccerDawgs crushing Jefferson County 8-0 at JCHS in the other area Sectional, Bearden (18-2-1) will join the Hawks (16-3-3) at state. In fact, the pair played each other in the quarterfinals Tuesday, May 20 (after deadline) — thanks to a new seeding system that doesn’t exclude playing a team from your own district in the opening round.
About his first goal, coming in the eighth-minute, “Frank (Manrod), he just played it perfectly over to Ali (Tarchane on the left side), and he just rocketed it there and it just connected with my foot and just went in the corner” of the net, said Brophy, a Maryville College signee who also scored both goals in the region title win at BHS. “It was just a great team play overall.”
About his second goal, coming with just 2:05 left in the first half after the Smoky Bears (13-4-2) tied the match in the 29th minute, “The ball got deflected to Cam (Wolfe), and he beautifully flicked it, and I was one-on-one with the keeper,” added Brophy, whose 77 career goals are just two short of the school record. “It was another great pass.”
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