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Moushm parly The Home Journal’s SANDLOT ON DECK Today Major League Baseball ■ Atlanta at Pittsburgh, 12:35 p.m., TBS BRAVES CORNER BRAVES 4, PIRATES 2 PITTSBURGH - Sure, the Pirates aren’t the Mets, but the Braves will take a pitching perfor mance like the one John Smoltz delivered Tuesday at any point in time. Danys Baez, picked up Friday from the Los Angeles Dodgers, worked a quick, scoreless eighth for his first hold as a Brave in his second appearance. Bob Wickman gave up an unearned run in the ninth, but collected his third save in three tries since he came over July 20 from Cleveland. Smoltz (9-5), now just one victory from becoming Atlanta’s first 10-game winner, had help from his bat-wielding friends, too. Adam Laßoche hit solo home runs in the third and sixth innings to continue his torrid play. Laßoche has nine home runs since the All-Star Break (16 games), including three multi homer games. The second shot Tuesday - his 22nd of the year - went 429 feet to right-center field and looked like it had a chance of making the adjacent Allegheny River. Snell (9-7) gave up four runs on nine hits in seven innings. Maybe the 24-year-old picked up some tips from the old man across the way. The 39-year-old Smoltz gave up a pair of doubles to Freddy Sanchez and Jeromy Burnitz in the fourth that resulted in the only run against him, but he navigated through the Pirates' lineup with ease much of the night. He struck out seven, didn't walk any batters and gave up six hits, four of which were singles. Smoltz hasn’t lost since June 13, a span of nine starts. He’s won five of his past six outings. It’s the third time he’s allowed one or fewer runs and gone seven plus innings in the past six starts. - R. Travis Haney, Morris News Service IN BRIEF CGSA begins late registration Late registration for the Centra! Georgia Soccer Association began today. All children ages 4-19 are invited by the organiza tion to, according to a release, “join the ‘spectacular’ game of soccer.’’ Online registration can be found at www.gasoccer.org/cgsa or those interested can go by their office during the hours of 11 a.m.- 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. Contact CGSA Association Administrator Bette Dillon, at 478-987-2455 or email her at playcgsa@alltel.net for further information. Landings sets dates for Linkup2golf program The Landings golf course will be holding its Linkup2golf pro gram for new and re-newing golfers Aug. 8-31. The group will meet Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:30-10:30 a.m. for early classes and 5:30-6:30 p.m. for evening classes. The cost is $129 which includes clubs. Call Bill Goggin at 923-5222. Or e-mail him at Bill@goggingolf.com. Check out website at www.goggingolf.com. Rec volleyball signups set; cheerleaders needed The Warner Robins Recreation Department will begin registra tion for volleyball Aug. 14. It will run from 8 a.m.-5 p.m., and is open to girls and boys 13-18. The age control date is Aug. 31. A birth certificate is required upon registration unless it is cur rently on file. Participants must also have the required fee at the time of registration. Registration fees are as follows: $25 for city of Warner Robins residents, SSO for county residents and SBS for out of county residents. Call 929- 1916 for more information. THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 2006 Welcome to: ‘Camp Not This Year Late start puts Demon tradition on hold By MATTHEW BROWN Journal Sports Writer No sooner than everyone settles into the month of August than a pair of impor tant dates pop up for all loyal high school football fans to remember. Wednesday, Aug. 2, (yes terday) was the first day that, as the Georgia High School Association yearly by-laws book puts in, prac tice is allowed in helmets, shoulder pads, mouthpieces, shoes, and shorts only. That will be the case through -ft •jO f I V‘♦■>***4 [. ENI/Gary Harmon Perry player Maria Patterson connects during practice at the school Tuesday. That day marked the official opening for Georgia High School Association teams. Houston County, Warner Robins and Northside all followed suit with practices. As far as Westfield, head coach Rodney Culverhouse said his Georgia Independent School Association squad began practicing Monday. The Lady Hornets will also be the first to start playing games when they compete - per their norm - in the Freedom Park Tournament in Macon beginning Aug. 12. A :k irtUltiT' . f.... r ..... Tasha Harris takes her hacks. WR National Leagues World Series run ends By DON MONCRIEF Journal Sports Editor Warner Robins National League’s started off great and ended up, well ... not so great. The team, representing the state, opened up the Dixie Youth World Series in Alexandria with a 2-1 win over Virginia Saturday. That was the good news for the local 15-and-under All-Stars. Sunday was a different story. The-team faced Tennessee in a 2 p.m. game and lost 15-0. Then they took on host Alexandria at 8 p.m. Sports It's the first time I can remember. It's been good to get the kids by themselves and concentrate on football.' - Warner Robins head football coach Bryan Way, on the Demons, for the first time since around the mid-19605, not being able to go away for football camp Friday, then on Monday it will be time to break out the full pads. In Houston County, there’s another highly-anticipated date this week. School begins in all the public schools on Well connected ££ Jjt J: «....t*j y*j^| fe.- ift ■ -§ ; ffiEjS JbH Perry fast-pitch head coach Jeff Sans tosses to Crystal Greer from the “safety zone.” ENI/Gary Harmon ’They'll always be state champions. Nobody can take that away from them/ - Warner Robins National League coach Mark Goodman, on the league’s 15-and-under All-Stars and lost again, 10-0. The combined losses knocking them out of the tourney. “Alexandria scored five quick runs and we just never came ba'ck,” said coach Mark Goodman, who equated the girls’ play in the tournament as similar to the Braves’ most years. “The bats just went cold.” Friday. The prep football season itself, which last year start ed on Aug. 19, doesn’t begin until Sept. 1. One thing is dubiously missing from this equation: Still, there were high lights, Goodman said, such as Most Valuable Player awards going to Casie Goodman for her play at third in the first game, Jessica James for her defense in game two. “She was just outstanding,” Goodman said. “Some of the catches she made in left field were unbelievable.” the time-honored tradition Qf the football camp. Be it at the school itself or at an out-of-town location, football players are bunched together for a week that not only involves regular prac tice (mostly twice or three times a day) but also includes an atmosphere aimed at building bonds amongst the players. After all, your only human contact during that week is with your team mates and coaches. However, a season start ing later also means official ENI Gary Harmon And finally, an MVP going to Stephanie Stephens for her fielding in right in game three. Overall, “How do you downplay the World Series appearance itself,” said Goodman, adding that out of the 12, “all” of them should be back. “(Plus), it’s like I told the girls. “They’ll always be state champions. Nobody can take that away from them. “I was proud of their appearance. I think the girls had a lot of fun and enjoyed themselves. I think they came away with a posi tive experience.” SECTION B practice starting later. The start of school at the start of the month doesn’t allow any time for a sleep away camp. Perry High School head coach Andy Scott isn’t con cerned about not having a camp like last year. During the summer, the Panther coaches held vol untary workouts with what Scott called “great participa tion.” With so many players out, he said the summer See CAMP, page 5B Lightning mike nn at IBC WS By MATTHEW BROWN Journal Sports Writer The Georgia Lightning, a traveling baseball team mainly composed of Houston County baseball players, gained three wins plus a little bit of respect on its recent trip to the IBC World Series in Clearwater, Fla. The final record for the Lightning was 3-3 with one win coming against a local based club that finished third overall. All of the Lightning wins were come-from-behind efforts. What kept this team from finishing above .500, accord ing to manager Randy Willis, were some untimely break downs with the gloves. “I don’t want to say we were disappointed, but we felt we gave three games away,” said Willis. “Our defense let us down. We pitched well and hit the ball pretty good.” The Georgia Lightning may have had some rea son to feel overwhelmed in this World Series. The team played in an 18-and-under division, but of the 16 play ers bn the Lightning roster 12 are 17 years old and the other four are 16. See IBC, page 8B Let's form 2 new leagues When my stepson has imbibed just the right amount of liquid refreshment, he comes up with some excel lent ideas. His latest could solve the steroid issue for ever. Jim sug gests that we create separate Olympics for com petitors who use enhance ments and another for I Joe Sersey HDJ Correspondent “From Left Field” eleanopioe@stt.nel athletes who prefer au natu ral. That means 100-meter world champion Austin Gatlin wouldn’t have to worry about testing positive for excessive testosterone or other prohibited steroids. Imagine: a track and field athlete is accused in a dop ing scandal. Where have we heard that before? Oh, yes, Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery. Both of those athletes were coached by Trevor Graham who now coaches Gatlin. Gasp! What a coincidence. Gatlin is accused of using the same stuff as Tour de France champion See SERSEY, page 5B