Youth sports

Jeff Wallace has been president of Maryville Little League for longer than he can remember, and he’s never heard of anything like it. Prior this summer, it wasn’t even possible. Little League-sanctioned state softball tournaments are underway this week, and, ...

Following its second consecutive top-10 finish in the Smoky Mountain Invitational, the Maryville/Alcoa Flying Dolphins have their sights set on a league title. Powered by big weekends from Katrina, Rachel and Lauren Eccles, Sam Tingle, Seth Jinks and Taiga Ikeguchi, ...

All-Blount County Middle School Basketball Team

All-Blount County Middle School Baseball Team

McKenzie Hawkins smiles, even giggles a little bit, when she describes being tackled by Candace Barley. Hawkins was a fifth-grader at the time. Barley was by then a regular with the U.S. junior national team and one of the two ...

Richard Norville had no idea his father, Richard Sr., had held onto the photograph all these years. He’d kept it locked away in his desk drawer at the family’s Alcoa home. Norville had come across the picture of the 1959 ...

If they’re still playing basketball 100 years from now, defense will still win the big ones. Emily Herron’s baseline jumper pulled Union Grove within a single point with four minutes remaining in the championship game of the Blount County Middle ...

On one second quarter burst, tiny Alcoa Elementary guard Riley Hicks blocked a Madisonville shot, recovered the ball along the baseline, pushed the ball up the court on the break, then fed the ball inside for the tying basket with ...

Don Sentell has been coaching youth football in Blount County for 44 years. It blew him away. “Oh, gosh!” he said. “Unreal. Unreal. Probably the worst I’ve ever seen.” A cold, grey, soaking rain drenched Blount County for seven hours ...

The Maryville Middle Bulldogs made history this season, becoming the school’s first team to complete a 10-0 season. The Bulldogs punctuated the run with a Smoky Mountain Athletic Conference championship at season’s end. Five Maryville players were named to this ...

Carpenters ran the table, finishing 12-0 en route to the Blount County championship. The Lady Cougars are duly represented with four players on this season’s All-Blount County Middle School Softball Team, but there are several others to keep an eye ...

These kids are going to make a lot of noise on the high school level one day soon. The Carpenters Middle School softball team capped an undefeated season in grand style recently, polishing off their Loudon counterparts, 20-12, to win ...