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t Houston Unity THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2006 The Home Journal's SANDLOT 'wiwwi'Nim’ ON DECK High school Football Friday ■ Houston County at Valdosta. 8 p.m. ■ Colquitt at Warner Robins, 7:30 p.m. ■ Northside at Westside, 7:30 p.m. ■ Southland at Westfield, 8 p.m. ■ Northeast at Perry, 7:30 p.m. Youth Football Saturday Optimist Bowl at McConnell- Talbert Stadium ■ 8:55 a.m. - Welcome and invocation ■ 9 a.m. - Mighty Mite introduc tion ■ 9:10 a.m. - Mighty Mite con solation game ■ 10:15 a.m. - Mighty Mite championship game ■ 11:25 a.m. - Mite introduction ■ 11:35 a.m. - Mite consolation game ■ 12:55 p.m. - Mite champion ship game ■ 2:25 p.m. - Midget introduc tion ■ 2:35 p.m. - Midget consola tion game ■ 4:10 p.m. - Midget champion ship game IN BRIEF South Coast League to hold tryout camp The South Coast League of Professional Baseball today announced that its inaugural try out camp will be held Nov. 11 in Bradenton. Fla. The camp will be held at Robert C. Wynn Field on the campus of Manatee Community College, home of the South Coast League's Bradenton Juice. All participants are required to pre-register for the tryout. To pre register, go to http://www.south coastleague.com/tryouts. The cost to tryout is S4O, which can be paid by credit card, check, or money order. South Coast League uniform player contracts - including the Macon Music, which is part of the league - will be offered on the day of the camp to qualified participants. In order to participate in the camp, players must have prior professional baseball playing experience or have played at least two years of college base ball within the last three years. Directions from I-75: Take Exit 217 (old No. 41). This is a west bound exit onto State Road 70. Take SR-70 to 34th Street West (about eight miles). Turn left at the traffic signal at 34th Street West. Go south through the traf fic signal at 57th Avenue West and the field is on your left. Bradenton recently joined Charlotte County, FL, Albany, GA, Macon, GA and Aiken, SC as the fifth member of the SCL. The South Coast League will be a six-team based independent professional baseball league located in the Southeastern U.S. Habitat to hold softball tourney fund-raiser The Houston County Habitat for Humanity will hold a softball tournament Monday, proceeds of which are to go toward the Houston County Habitat for Humanity. The cost is S3OO per team - teams must have at least nine people with a maximum of 15. Trophies will be awarded and the first pitch is slated to be thrown at 9 a.m. Call 218-5545 or e-mail kcripe@flintemc.com for more information. Waterford to hold Junior Golf Clinic Waterford Golf Course will hold a Junior Golf Clinic Nov. 20-21. Times are: 10-11:15 for ages 5-10; 11:45 a.m.-1 p.m. for those ages 11 and up. The cost is SSO which includes Valdosta's standing offers little comfort to Bears By MATTHEW BROWN Journal Sports Writer In most regions or divi sions in sports, seeing the last-place team in the stand ings as the next oppo nent would be cause for a little relaxed feel- A Houston County at Valdosta, Friday, 7:30 p.m. ing. Not too many times, though, is that last-place club Valdosta High School’s V V m I*." 1 **!! ft tl. . V i 75! ■■ wmjt* nJMP ■Br M ,JHBw 9^ ENI Gary Harmon Northside’s Jake Harris holds Michael Gonzales in a head lock during the Eagles' practice Monday at the school. That day marked the first day the Georgia High School Association allowed schools to practice as a team. Westside final region hurdle for Northside By MATTHEW BROWN Journal Sports Writer Northside’s football Eagles want to feel pretty secure in the fact they will host a Region 4- AAAA play in game Nov. 10 at McConnell- Talbert Northside at Westside, Friday, 7:30 p.m. Stadium. At the same time, there’s maintaining a zero on the right side of the win-loss record. Just as nice would be to make a fourth-place team journey down from south suburban Atlanta on a late-autumn evening and attempt to end a long win ning streak. Therefore, it wouldn’t be a stretch to call Northside’s game Friday at Westside- Macon a playoff game. In fact, it is in many ways a championship game. For one, the 8-0 Eagles are try ing to secure the No. 1 seed in the Region 4-AAAA B sub region against a Seminole team with just one loss of its own in the division. Westside’s only loss in any game in 2006 came against Baldwin 27-24. That’s the same Baldwin team Northside beat in Milledgeville three weeks ago. That’s been the only loss for the Braves, which will be favored to win again this week against Dutchtown. “It’s certainly a big, big ball game,” said Northside head coach Conrad Nix about facing Westside and his former Warner Robins Sports football Wildcats. After losing last weekend in rainy conditions to Coffee County High, Valdosta was officially eliminated from the Region 1-AAAAA play off race with an 0-5 record. The 2006 season, the first for new head coach Rick Tomberlin, will come to an end after Friday’s game with the Houston County High Bears, which will be trying to claw back into the mix of state-tournament qualifiers. With a win on Friday, Houston County, now 2-2 in Wrestling begins High coaching rival, Bob Davis. “It’s one that keeps our undefeated streak alive, all the ramifications as far as sub-region play and being No. 1 going into the state playoffs. It’s just an important ball game, and a big ball game for them, too.” It is a Seminole club that can spoil a lot of Northside’s plans. What stands out the most is a scoring average of 40.6 points per game. In contests held in September, Westside scored 58 against Savannah High and 56 against Upson-Lee. “They are a very physi cal football team,” said Nix. “They probably do the best job of anybody we’ve played of running the foot ball inside outside. They do a good job of throwing the Contributed Billy Walter Northside’s assistant Kevin Kinsler talks to the defense during a break in action against Baldwin Oct. 13. The Eagles will travel to Westside Friday. "They could lust as easily be undefeated as they are 1-8.1 know that kind of sounds crazy, but a bounce or two here or there... they just haven't had a break." - Houston County head football coach Doug Johnson the region, can tie idle Coffee County for fourth place at 3- 2. So there’s a lot to gain for the upstart Bears and abso- football. That’s not their forte, but they run the foot ball so well. “I was a little bit sur prised of how well they ran it inside and outside, too. A lot of times you can gear out for the inside stuff and not worry about it getting out side much. Or vice versa. “Their linebackers are very athletic, and their defensive backs are very athletic. We will have to do a good job of maintaining, moving the football and get ting some first downs.” About that Seminole offense, Nix said it’s not a one-dimensional running attack in terms of person nel. Davis is using a lot of sophomores in the back field, while the senior of the bunch is No. 3, Fernando Pitts. lutely nothing to lose for the always-proud Wildcats. “They’ve just had a lot of tough luck this year,” said “Everybody has one guy who usually runs it a bit more,” he said. “They have two or three guys who run the ball really well. We will just have to play our positions. If we don’t play good, don’t take care of our responsibilities ... they have some big guys (on the line), two big tackles.” With a high scoring offense, Westside does com pliment it with a defense that has given up 13 or fewer points in five of its eight games. “They stunt a lot,” said Nix. “They bring the line backers, play a lot of man coverage. They do a lot of movement. We are going to have to control our blocks and prevent them from com ing free on those stunts. See HURDLE, page iB SECTION B Houston head coach Doug Johnson on the Wildcats. “They could just as easily be undefeated as they are 1-8. I know that kind of sounds crazy, but a bounce or two here or there ... they just haven’t had a break.” With the exception of a two-touchdown loss to Coffee, the difference in every Valdosta loss this year has been one score. The Wildcats and the Coffee Trojans were tied 0-0 in the final quarter, See COMFORT, page iB Demons gun for rebound By MA TTHE W BROWN Journal Sports Writer It may come as no sur prise, but no football team has a firm lock on first place in Region 1-AAAAA with two games to go in the regu lar season. In fact, first place has a three- Colquitt at Warner Robins, Friday, 7:30 p.m. way tie between Warner Robins High, Tift County and Lowndes High, all at 3-1 in the league. That’s not going to last long, though, as Tift plays host to Lowndes this weekend while Warner Robins must contend with the Colquitt County High air show on Friday at McConnell Talbert Stadium. Colquitt County, once the No. 1 ranked team in Class AAAAA, has slipped down to next-to-last in the region at 1-3 and is des perately in need of a win to stay in the state-tourna ment hunt. Warner Robins had first place all to itself at 3-0 before Saturday’s road loss to Tift County 17-10. The Demons go from one spread offense to another in these back-to-back contests. But where Tift County has a respectable running attack in its shotgun sets, Colquitt County’s passing game can make a coach totally realign his defensive game plan. The Packers from Moultrie owns the top passing offense in the region. On the defen sive side, Colquitt sits at the bottom in total defense and rushing defense, but is actu ally No. 1 in fewest passing yards allowed. That’s a tes tament to the skill athletes in the Colquitt secondary like Vance Cuff - already committed to sign with the University of Georgia as a cornerback - and Orion Ponder. But it all comes down to that offense, which has sometimes been likened to a two-minute drill. “They are four- or five wide just about every play,” said Demons head coach Bryan Way. “Sometimes they are only three-wide with two backs. But they have great athletes at the skill posi tion. They have receivers See REBOUND, page iB "Hopefully we learned what not to do (at lift County). It Is a little bit similar." - Warner Robins head football coach Bryan Way