Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

R A F T Y LL ■ W Li ' S ■- . HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL Northside seniors end regular season in style Beat Jones County, eapns most wins in school history, goes undefeated in region and nets No. 1 seed By DON MONCRIEF Journal Managing Editor The nerve. Jones County tried to ruin Northside’s Senior Night. No sir. Kim Dom i n y and Kristen Smith would have nothing to do with it. They are two of the team’s five 12th graders NORTHSIDE LADY EAGLES Northside 3, Jones County 1 - the other two being Lady ■S< • ‘ - ■ 1 ' ~ ~ ENI/Gary Harmon Perry’s Jacorey Lane looks for running room in the Panthers’ game against Central Thursday at Henderson Stadium in Macon. Peppy loses game, QB By MATTHEW BROWN Journal Sports Writer Before the rain had a chance to stop, Perry High had 200 to 250 potential yards taken away when quarterback Casey Hayward suffered a shoulder inju ry on the first play from scrimmage Thursday at the Brad Henderson Memorial Stadium in Macon. Central High scored four second-half touchdowns, three of them from the veer formation, to take a 26-8 victory in the first south sub-region game in Region 4-AAA for both the home Chargers and the visiting Panthers. But for Perry (2-3, 0-1), that first play had major implications not only for Thursday’s contest but per haps the rest of the 2007 sea son. Hayward was in trouble of getting sacked when he first took the shotgun snap, but scrambled away to get off a pass Akeen Felder caught for 24 yards on the Central 47-yard-line. * Hayward, however, would take a hit on the throw, and from that point on the offense belonged to sopho more backup Dardra Ragin. “We don’t know quite the extent of the injury,” said Perry head coach Andy Scott after the game. “He hurt his shoulder, and we sent him on to the doctor. “It had a huge impact. We Eagle Elissa Lee and Taelor Bousman and the last not being a Lady Eagle - a female - at all but head of field maintenance and Manager of the Year Chance Kitchens. Dominy and Smith stepped up to the plate in Northside’s 3-1 win at home against Jones County Thursday - its final regular season home game - after the Lady Greyhounds had taken a 1-0 lead in the top of the third. Dominy promptly laced didn’t play real well offen sively from that point on. Just could not function. Defensively we didn’t play real well either. A bunch of errors.” Ragin continued to oper ate the Perry offense out of the shotgun formation and completed 17 passes for 147 yards and a touchdown late in the fourth quarter to 6-4 receiver Trey Smith. In all, Smith had nine catches for 85 yards. The first half had the minimum amount of scoring possible in a football game. Perry led 2-0 on a safety resulting from Kanorris WU '■ .adm. ■ -—- LJfy \» ffl > WM fcJßr r vfHDw |P . , ; Charger defenders converge on a Panther runner. On the web ■ From Tuesday - Lady Eagle Sarah Purvis picks up win No. 12 while leading Northside past Dutchtown. the first pitch she saw into right-center for a double - the first of two twin-baggers on the night. Smith, after Hollie Langston had lined out to left field, bunted for a single. Both then scored, the first on Heather Langston’s Davis’ blocked punt that Central kicked out of its own end zone in the second quarter. Come the second half, the Charger offense was both lucky and good led by run ning back Adam Crump, who scored three of the four touchdowns. For the first half of play, Central had been running a split-back set with three wideouts, and Perry’s defense crowded the line each time first-time starting quarterback Fred Taylor took the snaps under center. The Chargers made an adjustment to a more tradi single and the second on Sarah Purvis’ double. That gave them the lead, which Brooke Red, who worked all seven innings, never relinquished. “It was excellent to see her out there tonight,” said Northside Head Fast-pitch Coach Mitch Horton. “She’s been hurt (a shoulder injury, he said), so it was good to see her out there. She battled and turned in a great per formance.” In all she scattered five tional veer set using Calvin Jones as a tight end. It worked out immediately for a nine-play, 71-yard scoring drive to start the third quar ter, but not without some serious breaks in the home team’s favor. At 3rd-and-14 from his own 25, Taylor threw the football backwards, but Crump could not make the catch. He would recover the loose ball and hop, skip and jump down the home side lines 19 yards for a first down. From the 44, Crump went right tackle to the See PERRY, page 2B ENI/Gary Harmon SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2007 hits. It also helped that she benefited from great defense, like the diving grab Heather Langston made out of the catcher’s box. That came in the sixth after a lead-off walk and consider ing the next batter singled may have saved a run - on a night when runs were hard to come by. Purvis also made a diving catch at third to end the ballgame. “Those were both great plays,” Horton said. “That’s what’s been so great about NS volleyball squad emus up start to HoCa, Mary Persons From staff reports Northside’s volleyball squad traveled to Houston County for a matchup against the Lady Bears and Mary Persons. It’s unknown how Houston County fared against the Lady Bulldogs, but against the Lady Eagles, the Lady Bears won two games to none - 25-23 and 25-17. “We played well against HoCo,” said Northside Head Volleyball Coach Jessica White. “We (just) had some unforced mis takes that really hurt us. But overall I am really proud of the team. We are playing well and together right now.” White went on to single out the play of Josie Toliver and her “great presence on the floor. She was killing the ball with determina tion.” On my new role as a blogger, keeping stats (Dear readers: The following is Part 1 of a two-part series as Houston Home Journal sports writer/columnist Matthew Brown commemorates 15 years in sports journal ism. No, it is not a retrospective look at all the top moments and stories of his writing career. It’s just a few comments B. Matthew Brown Journal Sports Writer beat reporting, the lecturing and the contest judging. Now, I’m not about to become a blogger or a web master.' Actually, this is a task I have undertaken each and every year in this business. It has to do with perhaps my most important job of all, and that’s covering high school foot ball. Only now have I recognized how important this is. So from now on, I shall be known as the “Official Unofficial Stat Keeper” for each football game I cover. Sometime in the month of September (can’t remem ber the exact date) I reached that 15-year milestone See BROWN, page zB Ayer earns Player of the Year By DON MONCRIEF Journal Managing Editor A win by default? Hardly, but you might get that impression from Buddy Ayer of the Perry Horseshoe Pitcher’s Club if you talk to him about, his recent award of Player of the Year for the state of Georgia for 2007. “Well before, there was this old guy from Atlanta (Milton Binson),” Ayer said. “He used to go to all of the tournaments. You couldn’t hardly ever beat this club. It’s been a collec tive team effort. It hasn’t ’ just been one player.” The Lady Eagles’ insur ance run came in the sixth when Purvis and Red hit back-to-back doubles then the first scored on Cady Mcßight’s single. In all, the night was special for a lot of rea sons. One, because it was Senior Night, but also for reasons two through and four. Two, because the See SENIORS, page iB m ■ From Friday/Saturday - Lady Bears earn finals berth at Spike Fest tourney ■ From Tuesday - HoCo rolls past Warner Robins and Baldwin White also said the squad introduced the Libero this week with Jennifer Starvetsky taking on that role on the team, “and doing well,” said White. “Carly Weber is really step ping up her game and mak ing her presence known on the floor as a silent leader. “I cannot say enough about this team and how much heart and determina tion they have to get better in this game. We have been putting in a lot of hours or hard nose practice time in and it is really paying off. “The girls are giving See VOLLEYBALL, page iB that built up over all those years on topics he wants to talk about. Despite the fre quency of sports columns lately, Part 2 of this series hopefully will be out before his next 15 years go by.) After 15 years of high school sports journalism in Georgia, I added a new bullet to my list of job titles. I’ve done the page designing, the photography, the proofreading, the editing, the garbage duties, the editorial writing, the news him (as a result). “I think he’s 80 now. He still plays some but he’s had to stay out and take care of his 96-year-old brother. So, he’s kind of been on the sidelines.” Modest as that may sound, you’ve got to give credit where credit is due. Ayer earned the title. Tournaments were spread across the state - from northeast to Hull (near Athens) Atlanta to south and Cordele. He also See A YER, page 2B 1B On the web