About The Sylvania times. (Sylvania, Ga.) 2022-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 20, 2023)
Page 4 - Wednesday, December 20, 2023 The Sylvania Times thesylvaniatimes.com SPORTS WRESTLERS EXCEL IN DUBLIN’S SHAMROCK SCUFFLE LADY GAMECOCKS STREAK TO 9-1; CHRISTMAS BREAK ARRIVES Down a pair of starters, the SCHS Lady Gamecocks of Stephanie Davis nevertheless whipped homestanding Southeast Bulloch’s AAAA Lady Yellow Jackets 46-17 last Saturday night to raise their record to 9-1 as they hit Christmas break. Now officially off to the second best start in SCHS history, the team will begin the meat of its Region 3-A D1 schedule beginning with their next game on January 5 and a trip to Pembroke to face the currently unbeaten Lady Redskins of Bryan County. On January 6 SCHS will host nonregion Burke County before hosting defending region champion Woodville-Tompkins’ Lady Wolverines on January 9. Trailing only the 2006-07 Lady Gamecocks of Jennifer Acree, who started at 11-0 for the best start ever, the 2023- 24 version of the Red and White will now get to see their response to the rigors of eight region games over their next scheduled 12 games. Playing without junior Rayven Tyler (ankle) and senior Aliliah Scott (flu), SCHS started rather slow in Brooklet on Saturday night. Leading but 9-5 after the first stanza, a 17-1 second quarter ended any thoughts of an upset loss to winless SEB. Despite a horrible night from the field and the foul line, the Lady Gamecocks prevailed. Junior Olivia Jackson had 19 points. 13 rebounds, and eight steals, while freshman Jaliah Roberts had 15 points to go with nine rebounds, and seven steals. It was Jackson’s first double-double. Kayla Oglesby had 11 boards. Their return engagement with Jenkins County’s Lady Eagles on December 15 proved a lot more difficult than the contest in the Harold Lee Scott Gymnasium. That first game was close until the early third stanza as SCHS led but 24-19 at intermission. Friday in the JCHS gym the game was close until the final buzzer. The Red and White led by a nearly identical score at the half, 21-18, but the homestanding Blue and White came back this time to lead 41-38 after 24 minutes. The Gamecocks put on the pressure in the final quarter to take a 46-42 win. In the crucial fourth Scott had seven as did Roberts. On the night the latter had 19 and the former 16. Tyler sat out with an injury. Roberts had another double-double as she also pulled down 12 rebounds. Kadence Morris had nine rebounds, Jackson seven, and Oglesby six. The last home game of the 2023 calendar year on December 12 against Portal’s Lady Panthers was never close. Less than 20 seconds into the game Scott had hit a three-pointer and a very short time later Tyler hit for one as well. By first quarter’s end the count was 27-7 SCHS. A quartet of Lady Gamecocks broke double figures led by Tyler’s 15. She was followed by Jackson’s 14 to go with five rebounds, Roberts’ 12 to go with seven rebounds, and Scott’s 11 to go with five rebounds. Still the Lady Gamecocks were under 50% from the foul line at 8-20. With a lineup limited to just eight wrestlers, including two in one weight class, the SCHS wrestling Gamecocks of Griffen Greene had their best tournament of the year in Dublin at the traditionally bracketed Shamrock Scuffle last Friday and Saturday. Missing several key team members due to injury and illness, the Red and White finished fifth from among better than 25 teams. In a far cry from recent tournaments, only one participating school was larger than AA. The Roosters return to the mat tomorrow and Friday in the Rumble on the River in North Augusta SC. On December 30 the team will be in the one- day Bulldog Bash at Harlem High School. Freshman Jason Newman was under the spotlight at the end of Saturday as he won the title in his 126 class by going 5-0 and pinning GMC’s Nathan Mills for the title. Along the way to the title match he pinned Cain Williams of Irwin County, Harold Park of Bulloch Academy, Bradley White of East Laurens, and Jordan Sullivan of Twiggs Academy. Right behind Newman was senior Jemiah Stewart (190) who took silver, losing to Telfair County’s Samuel Grimes in the title match. Stewart went 1-1 in the prelims with a pin of Kelvin Serrant of Dublin before being pinned by Jake Brooks of Treutlen County. In the finals bracket he won 11-1 over East Laurens’ Marquex Harris, 6-4 over freshman teammate Breylon Daniels to put him up against Grimes in the final. Junior Kody Cochran (215) and freshman Matt Sowell (144) each gained third place over the weekend. Cochran went 4-2 during the tournament, pinning Irwin County’s Ahmad Fears for third. Sowell went 4-1, pinning Irwin County’s Bob Merritt for the bronze. Senior Jason Zheng (165) and freshman Breylon Daniels each finished fourth, each going 4-2 over the two days. Daniels started 3-0 before meeting Stewart in the semifinals. In the battle for third place he lost to Treutlen County’s Jake Brooks by a 2-0 score. It was Brooks who also defeated Stewart in the prelims. Junior Isaac Maust went 2-2 at 150 and sophomore Brody Taylor went 0-2 at 175. ABOVE: Pictured are the grappling Gamecocks who participated in Dublin High School's Shamrock Scuffle. Kneeling are Isaac Maust and Jason Newman. Standing are Head Coach Griffen Greene, Assistant Coach Bo Viness, Brody Taylor, Jason Zheng, Kody Cochran, Wyatt Sowell, Jemiah Stewart, Breylon Daniels, and Assistant Coach John Maust (photo by Anita Cochran) RIGHT: Taking a season-high fourth in the 165 class over the weekend was senior Jason Zheng (photo by Nikki McFarland) BELOW: Freshman Wyatt Sowell (144) went 4-1 and took third place in the Shamrock Scuffle (photo by Nikki McFarland). LEFT: Lady Gamecock senior Aliliah Scott drives to the lane (photo by Francina Sanders) BELOW: Freshman Candice Scott picks up Claxton's Zarriana Harden on defense (photo by Francina Sanders) TOUCHING ALL THE BASES Burton Kemp Unless otherwise noted all articles in Sports are written by Burton Kemp, Sports As you read this week’s column, think this thought if you want; today is my deadline for next week’s copy. It is understandable as the deadline for getting copy to the printer is this Friday. Everyone needs a Christmas holiday. There will be no up to date sports (as up to date as is allowed by a weekly) next week. There will be only history and another version of Around the Horn on the page. Expect a wrap up of SCHS athletics for the calendar 2023 year. But here I go all over the place today with some thoughts on this and that. GHSA state championships were last week from Mercedes Benz. Did you happen to watch the Pierce County v. Rockmark contest for the Class AA state title? Our old region foe Pierce won 48-45 in three overtimes. It was a game that was a lot of fun to watch. In addition to the changing leads and all of the drama there was the fact that the Pierce quarterback carried the ball 53 times. According to the stats on the GHSFD he ran or passed on 61 of his team’s 64 plays. Of course everywhere the quarterback is the storyline. In my mind the real story of the game is the offensive line and the backs who never carried the ball, but instead blocked for the quarterback. When pretty much all your offense does from the first snap until the last snap is run quarterback right, quarterback left, and quarterback up the middle and you score seven touchdowns (he did throw a scoring pass), someone is doing some phenomenal blocking. Give those guys up front each a game ball!!! Writing that phrase QB left, QB right, and QB up the middle reminded me of something from 30 years back. Remember the 1994 state semifinal football game at Kelly Memorial? One of the Bluebloods of GHSA athletics was here. Of course that was the Lovett Lions. It was Saturday night, December 10 and the Roosters routed Lovett 43-14. Audrell Grace rushed a mere 19 times for 278 yards and five touchdowns. Counting 51 yards passing, SCHS had almost, but not quite, 500 yards of total offense that night, on less than 50 plays. Audrell touched the ball less than 40% of the plays. It was something that someone wrote on that old Georgia Sports Vent (a lot of trouble and hurt feelings over stuff written there) that has always stuck in my mind. Someone wrote about Lovett and the respondent, obviously a Gamecock fan, said “All we did was run Audrell Grace right and Audrell Grace left and y'all couldn’t stop it.’’ Want to understand the problem that some folks (like me) have with private schools playing against public schools? Prince Avenue is a great example of the answer to that question. Did you watch that team that went up against Swainsboro last Monday for the Class AD-1 state championship? Did you see the players on both sides of the ball they rolled out? It is unbelievable that so much talent exists at a school so small. Remember that they won the title in 2022 as well. Here is the problem, Prince Avenue, which will be playing in AA next year, has an actual FTE of 310 students. Of the schools in our next year’s region, Portal has an actual FTE of 314. ECI’s is 327. Jenkins County’s is 328. In terms of warm bodies in desks, PA would be the smallest school in Region 3-A D2. How can any public school with an actual school district ever put that roster together in a school with so few students? The NFL, maybe as well as all sports, is strangely fickle sometimes. Last Thursday night the now Las Vegas Raiders defeated their oldest of rivals, the now Los Angeles Chargers, by an NFL (maybe AFL too) unimaginable 63-21 margin. The score was 63-7 at one point. Just the week before the Silver and Black had lost a horrible to watch (I didn’t) 3-0 (remember our horrible-to-watch 3-0 playoff loss to Pelham three years ago?) contest to the Minnesota Vikings. Back on October 1, the Chargers defeated the Raiders 24-17. Thursday’s loss was so bad that Charger management fired both the head coach and the general manager. The Raiders did the same thing earlier this season. It cost them $85 million to terminate those contracts. The cost to the Chargers for their head coach was a mere $4 million. Did anyone else get the feeling that the GSU Eagles did not want to play in the Myrtle Beach Bowl? Did anyone else get the feeling that they did not want much to play the last part of the season? Back to back 6-7 finishes. No backup quarterback? LET US PRINT YOUR NEXT T-SHIRT ORDER! Family reunions - Church groups - School groups - Teams
