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Mtmsimt jßailjj THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2006 The Home Journal’s SANDLOT ""wr nownmir ON DECK High school Softball Today ■ George Walton at Westfield, 4:30 p.m. ■ Houston County at Lee County, 6 p.m. ■ Peach County at Perry, 6:30 p.m. ■ Jones County at Northside, 5:30 p.m. Friday ■ Northside at Brookwood Invitational (through Saturday), times and teams to be deter mined Saturday ■ Northside at Brookwood Invitational (through Saturday), times and teams to be deter mined High school Cross country Saturday ■ Northside and Warner Robins at Mercer Invitational, time to be determined High school Volleyball Today ■ Perry at Houston County, 5 p.m. Saturday ■ Martin Luther King at Houston County, 11 a.m. High school Football Today ■ Dutchtown at Northside, 7:30 p.m. Friday ■ Perry at Henry County, 7:30 p.m. ■ Houston County at Warner Robihs, 7:30 p.m. IN BRIEF Booster clubs to hold 4 quartets for cancer Warner Robins and Houston County’s booster clubs will be heading a fund-raising effort sponsored by the Rally Foundation called 4 quarters 4 cancer at Friday's game. All money collected will go directly to funding research to cure and prevent childhood cancer. Perry’s boys track team to sell Fair tickets The Perry High School boys track team will be holding a fund-raiser. The group will be selling a three-day student pass (ages 11-18) for the Georgia Nationa Fair. The tickets are for gate admission and cost $lO (a savings of $8). The pass is good for Oct. IQ -12. Tickets can be purchased at the Perry High School front office. The last day to buy will be Friday. Money raised will help buy uniforms and equipment for the team. Contact Cassandra Dixon at 988-6299 for more. Houston County YMCA to hold spruce-up day The Houston County YMCA has set a spruce-up day for Saturday. During that time will get together to update the interior of the building. The time will be from 7:30 a.m.-2 p.m. and the organization is looking for 50 volunteers to help out. A continental breakfast will also be provided. The facility is located on the corner of Moody Road and State Road 96. Call 922-2566 for more infor mation. Museum to host Georgia Invitational golf tourney The 17th Annual Museum of Aviation Foundation Georgia Invitational Golf Tournament will be held Thursday-Friday at the Pine Oaks Golf Club at Robins Air Force Base. The total value of prizes and giveaways is more than $30,000. Golfers receive a commemora tive golf shirt, a Thursday night traditional “Plantation Supper," luncheon buffets and a barbe cue awards dinner. The single player fee is $250. Sponsors and players can sign up by call ing the Museum of Aviation at 478-923-6600. Graham leads Warner Robins past lift County Northside falls to Dutchtown By DON MONCRIEF Journal Sports Editor If there is a kink in Kristin Graham’s armor, and that’s about like saying you could break into Fort Knox, it would be the first inning. Reach her then or don’t reach her at all. That said then it was pretty criti cal for Tift County, when WARNER ROBINS Warner Robins 8, Tift County 0 it put two runners on in the first, to put some numbers on the board. It couldn’t. Warner Robins went on to win 8-0. Graham went on, after giving up a single and walk back-to back, to strike out the next seven Lady Blue Devil hit ters. In all she fanned 16 of the 23 she faced. She gave up one hit and walked two. ENI/Gary Harmon Westfield’s Shae Horsting lunges for a high throw at third in Westfield’s game against Sherwood Tuesday at home. Westfield locks up region By MATTHEW BROWN Journal Sports Writer Westfield left no doubt as to who was going to win a seventh-straight region champion ship in soft ball this week. After shut ting down Sherwood Christian 4- 0 Monday in Albany, the Hornets and WESTFIELD HORNETS Westfield 8, Sherwood 0 pitcher Kelsey Gilliam con tinued to put zeros in the Eagles’ side of the score book Tuesday in Perry. With the 8-0 victory in six innings, Westfield wrapped up the 3-AAA champion ship with a final 5-1 league record in the regular sea son. The string of region titles for the school goes back to the 2000 season, the last in slow-pitch softball. The Hornet offense had 13 hits, several of them com ing in the infield. Westfield only had three hits and two runs through four innings. There were several instanc es of indecision on the part of the Sherwood defense in the last two innings, and the home team took full Sports The rest of Tift County’s runners - minus one that reached on a error - popped up, flied out or grounded out. Only twice did a runner reach second and both of those were erased via strike outs that ensued. As for the Demonettes, they didn’t waste their opportunities in the first. Katie Farinelli lead off with a single. Lauren Graham attempted to bunt her over and turned that into a single and then Kristin Graham hit the first-pitch she saw to the fence, it actually hit at the base of it, in left. That brought in one. Amber Conlon’s sacrifice fly brought in another to give Warner Robins a 2-0 lead. Conlon singled home Farinelli to make it 3-0 after three before the Demonettes put four more on the board in the fourth. Maci Brown' started See GRAHAM, page iB advantage to invoke the run-lead rule. Mason Moreland, bat ting again in the leadoff position, had three infield hits. Two hits each came from Daryl Ann Thompson, Hanna Jones, Gilliam and Audrey Clearman. Jones, with two sacrifice flies, drove in three runs total. Clearman also had three RBI. Gilliam had eight strike outs in six innings and allowed three hits. Two of those safeties came in the first inning after she struck out the first two Sherwood batters. She was also quite an active fielder with three assists and three putouts. Westfield staked a 2- 0 lead in the home first inning, which started with a Moreland hit and an error on Thompson’s sacrifice. Gilliam was able to bunt both runners over, and they scored on Clearman’s ground ball to the shortstop and Jones’ first sacrifice fly- The Hornets could not score after two Eagle errors in the second, but was show ing good glove work in the field. After Gilliam walked the first hitter of the top of the third, she fielded the I mT JR ip; r M " -JL M JM 1 1* •$ 4* 4'jf WpJrJ; *v /' **' •- A ■*»♦*•■*••***•■'♦ ’’ i ' i i' i * 1 “V‘V-" '' ’ , Journal/Don Moncrief Warner Robins leadoff hitter Katie Farinelli rounds third in the second inning of the Demonettes’ game at home against Tift County Tuesday. She eventually scored. In fact, she did so three times on the day. bunt and got the out to the There was another bunt shortstop Jones at second. See REGION, page 2B & Jf, ■ ■ V,;, q> nHt JvJmJW 4|l aAjhm aR - jjKJfc- <* v ir ... . “"*• < , ENI/Gary Harmon Lady Hornets first baseman Audrey Cleamon stretches for a throw at first. SECTION B Lady Panthers blast Central By MATTHEW BROWN Journal Sports Writer No rain ... everybody showed up ... finally Perry High School got to play some softball. The Panthers went to Macon Tuesday and crushed Central High 12-2 in five innings to improve to 4-2 in Region 4-AAA. Erica Smith struck out five to get the A PERRY PANTHERS Perry 12, Central 2 win. Both runs by Central were unearned after Perry errors in the first and fifth innings. Crystal Greer and Ashley Craddock each had two hits to pace the offensive attack. This game represented the first time Perry was able to complete a softball game since beating Southwest- Macon at home on Sept. 14. At West Laurens on Sept. 19, that game went into the fifth inning before rain forced a postponement. Two days later the Panthers went to Macon thinking they would be in action against Northeast, only no umpires showed up. “We’ve just been getting after it in practice, playing some simulated games with a pitching machine or I would pitch,” said head coach Jeff Sans about how the team has handled all the inaction. “Of course there’s nothing like a real game. We came out (Tuesday), and for the first three innings we were real flat. We were getting hits, but they weren’t solid. Then by the fourth inning we started hitting well.” To make up for some of the lost action, Perry (14-7 over all) was slated to return to West Laurens and start that game over on Wednesday. See BLAST,page iB "We've just been getting after it in practice, playing some simulated games with a pitching machine or I would pitch." - Perry head fast-pitch softball coach Jeff Sans