About The Sylvania times. (Sylvania, Ga.) 2022-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 31, 2024)
Page 12 - Wednesday, January 31, 2024 The Sylvania Times thesy lvaniatimes .com Junior Gatlin Scott (photo by Jamie Warren) Senior Rylan Robbins (photo by Jamie Junior Jeremiah White (photo by Jamie Warren) Warren) GAMECOCK BASEBALL OPENS FEBRUARY 12 Jumping right into the frying pan, the SCHS baseball Gamecocks of new Head Coach Josh She ley will open their 27-game 2024 campaign on Monday, February 12 with a trip to metro Marlow to faceoff with AAAAAA South Effingham’s Mustangs. The home opener will follow the next day when AAAA Southeast Bulloch comes to the SCHS campus. The nine-game Region 3-A D1 schedule will start with a double header with defending region champion Metter on March 12. Coming off a region runner-up season in 2023, the Roosters hope to challenge defending champion Metter in a much more competitive fashion this year. With Savannah High having dropped baseball for this season there are but four region teams allowing the Gamecocks, Bryan County, Claxton, and Metter each to be assured of a state playoff spot. The question will be which spot. While getting swept by Metter last year, the Red and White took two of three from Bryan County in what turned out to be a battle for second place. Those wins a year ago were 4-3 and 10-9 in eight innings. They run-ruled Claxton three times. Leading the hopes for a shot at knocking off Metter and maintaining pace (8-1 in 2023) with the remaining teams in the region are a trio of pitchers who started 20 of the team’s 28 completed games. In their 14-15 season, one win over Savannah High was a forfeit. Senior Rylan Robbins (3-3, 4.64 ERA in 28 innings with three starts) and juniors Gatlin Scott (5- 4, 4.65 ERA in 40 innings in nine starts) and Jeremiah White (2-3, 3.34 ERA in 29 innings in eight starts) will be the backbone of any title hopes this year. Behind them will be two pitchers who threw a combined three innings. Top returning hitters are sophomore Slate Thompson (.247, 18-73), Scott (.246, 16-65), and White (.228, 13-57). Seniors Joshua Oglesby and Robbins each got better than 50 plate appearances as well. SCHS must improve its hitting and contact. With a .245 team average the Gamecocks struck out 166 times to just 148 hits. Both Scott (3B) and White (CF) were Second Team All-Region while Thompson and Robbins were Honorable Mention. The combined varsity and junior varsity rosters include five seniors, five juniors, 12 sophomores, and five freshmen. At least four of the younger players are involved in other sports at this writing. Most of the youngest will start the season on the JV. In Region 3-A D1 each of the teams plays the other three times in a single week. That week has a double header in one place on a Tuesday and a single Friday game at the other. SCHS will play Metter the week of March 12, Bryan County the week of March 19, and Claxton the week of March 26. The Metter and Bryan County doubleheaders are at SCHS while the Friday game with Claxton is at home. The rest of the schedule includes home and home with South Effingham, SEB, Burke County, Johnson County, Swainsboro, Jenkins County, Jefferson County, and Hampton County SC. There is one game with ECI. GAMECOCK BASKETBALL HAS A ROUGH WEEK From start to finish, last week was a rough one for the youthful SCHS basketball Gamecocks of Nick Clifton. After losing to nonregion homestanding ECI on January 23 by a 57-46 margin, they fell in region games to Bryan County 58-46 on Friday and to Savannah High 79-32 on Saturday. Both region games were in the Harold Lee Scott Gymnasium. The Gamecocks will finish their region schedule this Friday night in the Metter gym. They will travel to nonregion Jefferson County on Saturday. With the 10-game region schedule almost over, the standings show both Savannah High and Woodville-Tompkins at 8-1 with Savannah High owning the tiebreaker. Both have clinched the automatic byes into the tournament semifinals. Behind them are Bryan County at 6-4 with third place sewn up, Metter at 3-5, SCHS at 2-6, and Claxton at 0-10 with sixth place sewn up. As the fourth and fifth place teams will meet in the opening round of the tournament the Gamecocks will see Metter on February 2024 SCI IS JV BASEBALL Feb. 1 5 Statesboro 5:00 Feb. 19 Swainsboro 5:00 Feb. 26 Metter 4:30 Feb. 27 ECI 5:00 Mar. 4 @ Statesboro 5:00 JVlar. 11 @ ECI 5:00 Mar. 1 3 (§)Burlce County 5:00 JVlar. 18 @> Metter 4:00 JVlar. 20 (cif Swainsboro 5:00 JVlar. 27 Burlce County 5:00 JVlar. 29 Claxton 4:00 13 in that game regardless of this week’s games. That first round game will be played at the gym of the third place girls’ team. Facing third place Bryan County on Friday the Gamecocks led 24-21 at intermission after a 9-9 first stanza. Six different players had first half points. A cold third quarter that saw them outscored 21-10 put the Redskins in the driver’s seat. With the Gamecocks up 27-25, BCHS hit for threes on three consecutive third quarter possessions and that SCHS lead turned quickly into a 35- 27 deficit. SCHS cut their deficit to 35- 33, but soon were down 42-33 and they never climbed back into it. Demarco Ward finished with 14 points. Saturday was not pretty in any way for Gamecock fans. The bigger, stronger Blue Jackets (still with just one senior in their lineup) jumped to a 15-8 first quarter lead and never looked back. Ten different Roosters had points with Ward’s six leading the way. The loss dropped SCHS to 3-15 on the season. In far and away the most disappointing game of the season the Gamecocks fell 57-46 in Twin City to D2 ECI. Back on December 1 the Roosters had their way with the Bulldogs to the tune of 69-26. While SCHS was ahead 14-12 after the first eight minutes last Tuesday, they were down 27- 25 at intermission and the home team added little by little to reach their final total. Ward led the way with 14 points. Sophomore guard Jase Hughes (photo by Francina Sanders hperfectshotphotography) Sophomore forward Rodney Beckw’ith (photo by Francina Sanders hperfectshotphotography) 2024 GAMECOCK BASEBALL SCHEDULE DATE OPPONENT PLACE TIME 12-Feb South Effingham Marlow 6:00 13-Feb SEB Sylvania 5:30 19-Feb Burke County Waynesboro 5:30 20-Feb Johnson County Wrightsville 6:00 24-Feb Swainsboro Diamond Day Swainsboro Swainsboro 10:00 ECI 2:30 27-Feb Jenkins County Millen 5:30 28-Feb South Effingham Sylvania 6:00 4-Mar SEB Brooklet 5:30 5-Mar Burke County Sylvania 5:30 7-Mar Jefferson County Louisville 5:30 12-Mar ♦Metter (2) Sylvania 4:00/6:30 15-Mar *Metter Metter 5:30 19-Mar *Bryan County (2) Sylvania 4:00/6:30 22-Mar *Bryan County Pembroke 5:30 26-Mar ♦Claxton (2) Claxton 4:00/6:30 29-Mar ♦Claxton* - JV/V DH Sylvania 4:00/5:30 2-Apr Statesboro Statesboro 5:30 3-Apr Johnson County Sylvania 5:30 8-Apr Swainsboro Sylvania 5:30 9-Apr Hampton County Varnville SC 5:30 16-Apr Jefferson County Sylvania 5:30 17-Apr Hampton County Sylvania 5:30 18-Apr Jenkins County Sylvania 5:30 ♦Region 3-A D1 SCA announce Students of the Month These students were chosen for showing the character trait, leadership in the classroom for the month of January. Photos contributed. SCRD SPRING REGISTRATION SCMS GAMECOCKS ADVANCE TO CHAMPIONSHIP Advancing to the Southeast Georgia Middle School League championship last week before falling to Metter in Metter on Saturday morning, the SCMS Gamecocks came up short in their title tilt to finish a very successful season at 10-4. Three of the boys four losses were to Metter, including a 50-46 overtime game on January 18. For the boys the biggest game was their semifinal win over unbeaten SGMSL South Champion Claxton on January 25 by a 42-32 margin. The game was in Metter. Cleve Mingle led the upset with 13 points and five rebounds. Cam Carter had 10 points and six rebounds while KaJay Tyler had eight points. Quincy Thomas pulled down five rebounds. The team had much more (4th) Jasper Daniels, (5th) Tinley Clemens, (6th) (PK4) Emma Lewis, (PK4) Hudson Bragg, (PK4) Jayne Thompson, Madilyn Wilson, (7th) Eli Derriso, (9th) Jala Baxley, (K) Adaline Oglesby, (K) Lucy Anna Hodges, (K) Elisa Parker, (K) BC (9th) Luke O'Barr Evans, (1st) Anniston Ward, (1st) Abigail Marsh, (2nd) Lillian Collins Not Pictured: (PK3) Oaklynn Collins. Registration for spring sports will be held February 1-23 at screvenrec.com and at the SCRD office. *Baseball (ages 7-17) Cost: $50 * Softball (ages 7-17) Cost: $50 *T-Ball (ages 4-5) & Coach Pitch (age 6) Cost: $40 Age control date to determine league: age on 9/1/2024 Tryouts will be held February 27-29. trouble with South third seed Bryan County in the opening round with just a 36-34 win. Thomas had 14 points and Carter 10. Carter had nine boards and Mingle seven. The SCMS Lady Gamecocks won their opener before falling in the semifinals. They took the measure of Claxton on January 22 by a count of 25-15 with A’Chanti Middleton having nine points while Arianna Budget had eight. SCMS was ousted by Metter 57- 32 with Middleton and Mica Shipes having nine each and Christina Robbins finishing with eight. THE BEST IN THE BUSINESS! LET US PRINT OR EMBROIDER YOUR NEXT T-SHIRT ORDER! Family reunions - Church groups - School groups - Teams rockstar_graphics@yahoo.com 613 Ogeechee Street Syluania, Georgia 30467
