SportsSportsSPORTS EDITOR: DARREN.REESE@GREENEVILLESUN.COM THE GREENEVILLE SUN WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 2014 B-1

Knights, Rebels Hold Pink Out GameChuckey-Doak hosted South Greene on the softball diamond earlier this week as the two Greene County teams came together for a ‘Pink Out’ game to support

breast cancer awareness.

Bailey, Devils Hold Off Kingsport D-B For 2-1 Victory

FIRST IN LINEGreeneville’s AlmqvistWins Title; First Local Athlete To Punch TicketTo This Year’s FlingBY DARREN REESESUN SPORTS EDITOR

What is the optimal strategy when com-peting in the decathlon without having prior experience in several of the events?

“I just had fun,” said Greeneville’s Anton Almqvist.

Almqvist, an exchange student from Sweden, dominated the Class A/AA state sectional decathlon meet at Greeneville Middle School this week, accumulating 5,167 points to finish 455 points ahead of runner-up Conner Fair of Knox Catholic.

Almqvist combined his athletic abil-ity, willingness to learn, and fun-loving spirit to overcome not having previously competed in such events as the pole vault and discus, among others.

“I like trying new things and trying to top what I’ve done so far,” Almqvist said. “I tried to do a little extra training in some of these events last week.”

“I had never pole vaulted. I had never really thrown discus, or done the triple jump. I’m not used to running the mile. It was fun.”

Almqvist becomes the first Greene County athlete to punch a ticket to this year’s TSSAA Spring Fling state cham-pionships, to be held May 19-23 in Mur-freesboro.

This won’t be Almqvist’s first trip to state competition during his stay in Greeneville. He also made it as part of the Greene Devils’ boys basketball team, which reached the Class A/AA final four last month.

“I’ve just tried to have fun with every-thing,” Almqvist said. “I think that’s very important. It helps you stay motivated. Just have fun.”

Almqvist was solid across the board,

DISTRICT 1-A SOFTBALL

Bucs RollPast SGIn BattleOf TopTeams

A battle of the top two softball teams in District 1-A turned into a lopsided affair Tuesday afternoon.

University High, perfect in the district standings, finished off a regular-season sweep of South Greene by churning out 11 hits en route to a 16-2 run-rule victory on Rebel Hill.

The Lady Rebels drop to 6-3 in district play with the loss. They will close out their league schedule Thursday with a road contest at North Greene.

South Greene didn’t help its cause on defense as University High benefited from four walks and eight errors.

Lead-off hitter Barrett

Greeneville Defense Turns Away 18 ShotAttempts In 2nd HalfBY TATE RUSSELLSUN SPORTS WRITER

The shots kept flying, but Taylor Bailey wasn’t backing down.

The Greeneville goal keeper highlighted a defensive effort that turned away 18 second-half shots Tuesday night as the Devils held on to record a big 2-1 victory over visiting Kingsport Dobyns-Bennett at Burley Stadium.

“I’m really proud of the guys,” Greeneville coach Jerry Graham said. “This is the

time of the year you want to be peaking and that is why we schedule a quality club like D-B late in the year – to get that high level of competition. To come out with a win tonight is big for us.”

Bailey and his backline came up huge as Dobyns-Bennett pushed everyone up and threw all they had at Greeneville(10-2-1) trying to force the equal-izer.

The tying goal never came because of Bailey’s acrobatics in the high-pressure second half, diving to every corner of the net to get stop after stop.

The most impressive of those saves came on the very last shot attempt of the game. Evan Fenyves sent Dobyns-Bennett’s fourth stoppage-

time attempt toward the net through a crammed box. As it sailed over and through almost the entire contingents of both teams’ outfield play-ers, the shot looked like a sure thing.

Bailey broke to his right and leaped to the corner of the net to pull the shot out of the air and preserve the victory.

“(Bailey) has always had phenomenal hands. He has the ability to catch rocket shots coming right at him and he did that on that last shot,” Graham said. “It was an incredible shot and he just yanked it out of the air. It was just an incredible save.”

It was not just Bailey,

PLEASE SEE DEVILS | B-3

DISTRICT 1-A BASEBALL

Rebels CapDistrict SlateIn Big WaySouth Greene Churns Out 13 Hits In 15-5 Rout Of Cloudland

The South Greene baseball team wrapped up its District 1-A regular season schedule in a big way Tuesday night.

The Rebels churned out 13 hits in support of a solid pitch-ing combination from Seth Cordwell and Caleb Shaw to win 15-5 in five innings.

STATE SECTIONAL DECATHLON

PLEASE SEE TRACK | B-3

PLEASE SEE LADY REBELS | B-3

PLEASE SEE REBELS | B-3

SUN PHOTO BYTATE RUSSELLGreeneville’s Bailey Rader pushes the ball up the field during Tuesday’s game against Kingsport Dobyns-Ben-nett at Burley Stadium. The Devils scored two early goals and held on for a 2-1 vic-tory.