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Houston Haiti) FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2006 The Home Journal's SANDLOT ON DECK High school Football Today ■ Houston County at Valdosta, 8 p.m. ■ Colquitt at Warner Robins, 7.30 p.m. ■ Northside at Westside, 7:30 p.m. ■ Soujhland 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. southcoastleague.com/tryouts. The cost to tryout is S4O, which can be paid by credit card, check, or money order. South Coast League uniform p'ayer 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. 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 Clinlb 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 lunch for both day, prizes and more. Visit the course to sign up. Postseason positioning at stake for Perry By MATTHEW BROWN Journal Sports Writer It just wouldn’t be a good sub divided football region if there wasn’t a long list of playoff possibili- ties going into the last week before the state play-in games. Region 4-AAA indeed has numer ous scenarios on who could finish second, third or fourth in each sub region based on this & Northeast at Perry, today, 7:30 p.m. weekend’s results. The simplest one, and the one that matters the most for Perry High School, is the sec ond-place battle in the south sub region between the Panthers and the improving Northeast-Macon .... ... , .JHL ...yifc. . ■ .flft ARUM - ~ =— ENI/Gary Harmon Warner Robins’ Marc Kushinka races against Colquitt County’s Tyler Dismuke early in the Region 1-AAAAA race Wednesday at Pearl Stephens Elementary School. Demons win region WR, HoCo girls and boys each qualify for state By DON MONCRIEF Journal Sports Editor It’s a way overused term but in Warner Robins’ case it’s appropriate just one more time to use it. “They keep going and going.” Case in point the Region 1-AAAAA cross coun try championship held Wednesday on the course behind/on Pearl Stephens Elementary School. The team finished first overall, clinched the region title and qualified for state in the process, and how did they celebrate? By running the course again! That’s Energizer bunny material. And, it’s not like they didn’t have any compe tition during the race. Case in point: Marc Kushinka. The Demons’ front-runner all season long, and who clinched the overall “individual” title, beat the closest competitor by at least 100 yards. But, heading down the first hill (making three left hand turns - which covered approximately the same dis tance as one and a half times the outer edge of a football - first) he was sixth. By the time runners came up the hill - covering about 300-400 more yards in the process - he was second. He passed the runner in first, Colquitt County’s Tyler Dismuke, about 200 yards later while heading up a Sports "They are talented and can put points on the board.” - Perry head football coach Andy Scott, on Northeast Raiders. Perry and Northeast are both 3-1 in the sub-region, and in fact are both 5-3 overall. The two teams will meet tonight at Herb St. John Stadium, and it’s a simple matter that the winner finishes all alone in second place and gets to host a Class AAA state-tournament play-in contest on Nov. 10. In the north sub-region, Jackson '• <;■■■■•s£? - ''®^£' - •HBBBtMU ENI/Gary Harmon Houston County’s Kiersten Wharton crosses the finish line in fourth. long, sloped hill, but the battle was far from over. About 200 yards later he was passed back - the two runners about 50 yards ahead of the pack by then. Kushinka passed him heading into the woods and was passed back right as they came out. He passed Dismuke as they crossed the finish line and then main tained a short lead heading back down the hill again. This time as they came up, however, Kushinka led by 20 yards. The battle real took over first place all by itself by beating Spalding High last week end. Spalding dropped to 3-1 and in sole possession of second place, but Mary Persons, despite a loss to Henry County, stands in third at 2-2 going into tonight’s game with the Spalding Jaguars. That means the Bulldogs can take second place by defeating the Jags. So, in summary, the Perry- Northeast winner will host the Spalding-Mary Persons loser for the right to be dne of 32 teams in the state playoffs. The Perry-Northeast loser would then go to either Griffin or Forsyth with the same stakes on the line. One other note in the north sub region is the battle for fourth place and the right to play defending ly was over by then because he had that stretched to 50 in no time and continued to build it from there. Meanwhile, while that battie was going, the Demons’ Karl Burkhardt and Houston County’s Frankie Rios-Maldanado were busy fighting over third ... eventually. Rios- Maldanado actually didn’t come into the picture until the second lap. During the first lap, Burkhardt was occupied trying to hold off Valdosta’s Parker Childree in another seesaw affair. Burkhardt held the position, was passed, passed back and then managed to keep a step ahead of Childree. While that was going on, Rios-Maldanado in fifth and Colquitt County’s Carlos Charles in sixth - those two side by side most of the way - began closing. Midway through the second lap they closed onto the heels of the other two. By the time that lap was over, how ever, it was Burkhardt and See %UALIFY, page xB AAA champions Peach County in Ft. Valley. Ola High, a new school, won for the first time in football last week 35-15 over Eagle’s Landing. That, coupled with Henry’s win, forged a three-way tie for fourth at 1-3. Henry County is playing Ola tonight while Eagle’s Landing must face Jackson at home. The matchup of most concern here remains Perry and Northeast. The Panthers beat the Raiders last year 30-9 with seven interceptions. This year, Northeast has beaten everyone in the sub-region Perry has, plus the Raiders own a non-region win, 21-7, over Mary Persons. “They are continually getting better,” said Panther head coach Andy Scott. “Coach (Bruce) Mullen See STAKE, page xB Richt gets a small vote of confidence Next week, every eligible and regis tered American has the right to go cast a bunch of votes. Some people vote for ‘the man,’ who ever they feel is best for the job regardless of party affi 1 i a - tion. Some people vote a straight party tick et, remain- ing loyal to the D or the R. Some people hate the whole process and decide not to vote at all. Let me continue by saying that I firmly believe in exer cising this Constitutional right, and not casting a vote isn’t the best way to see the process changed. Let me now, before I start losing everyone - including my editor, make some con nection for this to be clas sified as a sports column. Voting is something you, the citizen, should care about. There are things you could care less about, and it’s quite all right. For me, it all has to do with the 2006 Southeastern Conference football cham pionship. The University of Georgia Bulldogs will not be repeating as confer ence champions this year, therefore my interest in how the league turns out just dropped all the way beyond floor level. Perhaps I shouldn’t be talking about the Bulldog season with the lawsuit still pending. But it looks like Georgia will not be able to make the proper restitution for the damages this party is seeking. The action stems from the unspeakable loss on Oct. 14 to Vanderbilt. Under the Richt administration, that just wasn’t supposed to hap pen. Promises were made. It’s like wedding vows were betrayed. Among the damages sought were wins over Florida and Auburn. Well, we know one of those didn’t happen. So, in order to save a lot of court time, consider the suit dropped. No matter what form, shape, size, color or lan guage, Georgia is still losing to Florida. The last couple of years, though, have been so close, and yet still so far, for the Red & Black. We haven’t really developed that hatred for Urban Meyer, not like it was for one of his predeces sors, Steve Spurrier. Did I detect a little ten-, tativeness in the Gator See VOTE, page lB SECTION B Matthew Brown Journal Sports Writer