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Moustmt Saily TJmmuil FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2006 The Home Journal's SANDLOT ON DECK High school Football Today ■ AAAAA quarterfinals: Houston County at Roswell, 7:30 p.m. (Note: Game will be held at John McEachern High School in Powder Springs - Cobb County. Also, game is scheduled to be broadcast on 103.9 FM.) ■ AAAAA quarterfinals: Warner Robins at Norcross, 7:30 p.m. (Note: Game is scheduled to be broadcast on 99.9 FM.) ■ AAAA quarterfinals: Habersham Central at Northside. 7:30 p.m. (Note: Game is sched uled to be broadcast on 1350 AM. Also, the station will have its tailgate show at 5:30 p.m. in the parking lot of Chick-fil-A on Watson Blvd. Pre-game show is slated for 6:30 p.m.) High school Basketball Today ■ Northside at Warner Robins, 4 p.m. (Rescheduled for Jan. 27, 2007) Saturday ■ Westfield at Mount de Sales, 2 p.m. ■ Houston County at Perry, 6 p.m. High school wrestling Today ■ Perry at Southern Slam duals (through Saturday), teams and times to be determined Saturday ■ Perry at Southern Slam duals, teams and times to be deter mined ■ Northside and teams to be determined at Bear Duals at Houston County, 9 a.m. High school swimming Saturday ■ Warner Robins at PACE Invitational in Atlanta, 5 p.m. ■ Perry at Coffee County Trojan Invitational, 8:30 a.m. IN BRIEF YMCA offers special sign-up promotion The YMCA is currently offer ing a special promotion where they are giving away one free month of gym membership to all new members. The family fitness center offers: gymnastics, jiu-jitsu, fit kidz, dance, parent’s night out and mother's morning out and much more. A family member ship consists of an SBS joiner's fee plus the first month of S4B. Under the promotion, you pay SBS and your first month of ser vice is free. The offer will expire Dec. 31. Perry Youth Wrestling Club sets registration The Perry Youth Wrestling Club will be hold registration Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. in the Perry High School multi-purpose building. All students ages 5-14 are eligible. The cost is S2O which includes a club T-shirt. Also, each wrestler will be required to purchase a USA wrestling card on-line prior to the first practice. The card is $35. Cards can be purchased at Team Georgia Wrestling at the website www.themat.com. The club will also be selling wrestling singlets for S3O for the ones who want to com pete at the local tournaments. The club will meet Tuesdays and Thursdays (practice begins Dec. 5). Any day that school is closed due to inclement weather or winter holidays, there will be no practice. According to a release, “The purpose is to teach fundamen tals and give kids an introduc tion to the great sport of wres tling.” For further information, call Coach Randy Moss at 988- 6291. Also, the club will hold a golf tournament fund-raiser Dec. 16 at Perry Country Club and the Perry Takedown Classic Wrestling Tournament will be held Feb. 10. Demons on 'receiving' end of tough matchup By MATTHEW BROWN Journal Sports Writer After having already taken out one serious contender in the GHSA 5A clas sification, Warner Robins High’s reward is an opportunity M Warner Rollins at Norcross, today, 7:30 p.m. at perhaps the favorite in Georgia’s top football echelon ... at least as far as a nationally circulated periodical is concerned. Another way to say that is that Warner Robins High, a convincing 27-7 winner last weekend at Camden County High in the second round of the state playoffs, now draws Norcross High in the quarterfinal round today in Been there, done that Would like to do it again ... Bears chase second semifinal visit in school history By MATTHEW BROWN Journal Sports Writer One more victory, and Houston County High School’s football Bears will make their first appear- ance in the Georgia Dome. It won’t be the first time Houston County has reached the flt mmrn Houston County at Roswell, today, 7:30 p.m. semifinal round of a state playoff. The year after the Bears made it that far, the Georgia High School Association expanded the playoffs to 32 teams and put the final four of each clas sification in Atlanta’s big indoor stadium. To get to the home of the Atlanta Falcons, the Southeastern Conference championship game and a pair of Super Bowls, Houston County must go to the Atlanta area to take on 11-1 Roswell High in the quar terfinals of the GHSA 5A tournament. Tonight’s game is in a neutral site, John McEachern High School in Cobb County (Powder Springs). The Bears just returned from a visit to the metro area, as they had to go to Lithonia for a second-round game with M.L. King High. Houston County was victori ous in a shutout, 28-0. Even in the first round the Bears, which finished fourth in Region 1-AAAAA to qualify for the postseason, traveled Braves should consider Glavine a priority The probability/possibility grows slimmer by the day, but the Braves need to sign Tom Glavine. Glavine has reportedly said he would like to finish out his career with the Braves - or the Mets - but as of Thursday, Atlanta was treating him (his agent) the same way they did when he left the first time. That is, they’re leaving - if Associated Press reports are correct - the airwaves plenty quiet. “He can’t even evaluate that they really want him if he doesn’t have an offer,” his agent Gregg Clifton was quoted as saying Thursday. After all the great seasons he had with the Braves, I believe he should end his career where it started. The Braves will get a quality starter who can still get people out. Glavine’s brief stint on the DL last season could never match the amount Sports Gwinnett County. Norcross finished the reg ular season ranked No. 1 in all of the state polls, and USA Today placed the Blue Devils at No. 19 in its latest national prep rankings. The winner gets a spot in the semifinals, which once again takes place in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome on Dec. 9. “They are not No. 1 for nothing,” said Warner Robins head coach Bryan Way. “They are very athletic on both sides of the ball. They have tall, rangy kids who run well and make plays. Probably the most impres sive part of the offense is the receiving corp. They have three or four guys, 6-3, 6-4 type kids who catch the ball well. Thqy spread you out and do a good job of throw- a ' ■’ , Bffs., ENI Gary Harmon Houston County’s Don Jones (17) hands off to Jerome Gamboa during a practice at the school Thursday. The Bears will travel and play Roswell today. to a suburban town south west of Atlanta, Newnan, and won 35-21. Roswell has the No. 2 seed of Region 6-AAAAA, which is sub-divided (Wheeler High Joe Sersey Journal Correspondent should try to find another catcher who can hit but other than that, the Braves look pretty solid going into next year. I’ll make this prediction now. If the Braves resign Glavine and Greg Maddux, they won’t win their divi sion, but they will make the playoffs as a wild card. And when they’re knocked out in the first round of the playoffs, it won’t hurt as much. Did you know that the NBA season "They are not No. 1 for nothing. They are very athletic on both sides of the ball. They have tall, rangy kids who run well and make plays." - Warner Robins bead football coach Bryan Way ing it down the field. “We will have to be really disciplined and keep every thing in front of us. If they throw it underneath we will have to react back up, make good tackles and try to keep them from hitting big plays. The quarterback has thrown for 1,800 yards and a bunch of touchdowns. “I think they are better on defense. They haven’t given up many points. We have our work cut out for us.” of the other sub-region had the No. 1 seed and lost in the first round to Peachtree Ridge). The Hornets so far have wins against Collins Hill 31-28 and Brookwood of time the current batch of Braves hurl ers have spent lan guishing in pain on the pine. Atlanta has a strong nucleus of young and old play ers and only needs to shore up its pitching staff. They probably Brooks Cunningham is the player to highlight on the Norcross defense. The senior end, going into the second-round playoff game, already set the school record for sacks in a season with 17. He has also piled up a number of tackles-for-losses and quarterback-hurries. Way said Cunningham, with recruiting interest from Tulane and VMI, fits the “tall and rangy” bill at 6-3 and about 240 pounds. (Region 8-AAAAA champi ons) 10-9. Roswell’s history does include a pair of state cham pionships in 1968 and 1970 with current Southern is at least a month longer that the Major League baseball season, but baseball teams play 162 games to bas ketball teams’ 82? Basketball is played indoors, so the game should be restricted to days when there’s snow on the ground. That means the Atlanta Hawks would only have to play four or five games a season. Since that’s about their win total each year, it works out well. Baseball is a summer sport. That means, the games shouldn’t be played in the snow. I suggest cutting the season to run from May through August with the playoffs during September. If the brain banks that do the sched uling would put some consideration into what’s good for the sport and not for TV revenues, they might start the games when future generations of fans can watch. < See SERSEY, page zB SECTION B But he’s not the only factor to consider on the Blue Devil defense. “We will just have to try to be physical with him ... stay after him,” he said. “I don’t know how many tackles the middle linebacker has, but he’s in on most of them. They are all good enough that you can’t overlook any of them. You have to block them the best you can. “You may be able to double team one guy here or there, but you don’t have enough people on offense to double team everybody on defense. We just have to keep them off-balance as much as we can, throw early in a series on some running downs, run our counters and that type stuff.” On offense, Way said See DEMONS, page iB Mississippi head coach Jeff Bower and the starting quarterback. “They had a good chance to be undefeated,” said See BEARS, page zB Eagle grapplers open with split From staff reports Northside opened its year on the wrestling mats with a split-decision. The Eagles beat Rutland 48-36 but fell to Baldwin 45-31. Despite the latter loss, coach Dusty Dykes said he thought it was a “good start for our team. “It is always good to get the first match out of the way,” he said. “It lets us know what we need to focus on at practice for our guys to become better wrestlers.” Winners for Northside against Rutland were: Travis Boyd in the 103-pound divi sion, Adam Wright, 112 See EAGLE, page zB