About The Sylvania times. (Sylvania, Ga.) 2022-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 21, 2024)
thesy lvaniatimes. com The Sylvania Times Wednesday, February 21, 2024 - Page 3 McFarland claims runner-up, NEWMAN FIFTH IN STATE FINALS "Chilling" in the Macon Centreplex the day before the tournament started are the Gamecock state finalists and their coaches. Clockwise with Head Coach Griffen Greene (red shirt) in the middle are Isaac Maust, Ryder Rankin, Wyatt Sowell, Jason Zheng, Jemiah Stewart, David McFarland, Jason Newman, Coach Bo Viness, and Coach John Maust (photo by Nikki McFarland) Highlighted by senior David McFarland’s (157) state runner-up finish and freshman Jason Newman’s (126) fifth place finish the seven SCHS grappling Gamecocks of Griffen Greene who qualified for the state finals at the Macon Centreplex last week closed the door on the 2023-24 wrestling seniors. Six seniors, four of whom participated in the GHSA finals, finished their careers, three with more than 100 wins. Six regulars from this year’s lineup will return. To reach the state championship encounter with Cade Parent of St. Francis, McFarland pinned Hendrix Jones of Darlington, defeated Caden Prater of Social Circle 14-6, and then pinned Tanner Mask of Oglethorpe County in the championship semifinals. Parent, who defeated the Gamecock 10-2 on February 10 at the sectionals, came out quick with four first period takedowns enroute to a 19-6 victory earning the gold. Nevertheless McFarland became just the third Rooster in the nearly 40 years of SCHS wrestling to earn such a lofty finish. He finished his season at 46-9 and his career at 160-51. Wrestling the most matches of any Gamecock in the state finals was the freshman Newman. He opened with a 17-4 win over Samson Dobbs of Commerce before being pinned by Mt. Pisgah Christian’s Conner Doherty who went on to win the state title. He rebounded with wins over Rylee Clarke of Oglethorpe County 15-4 and Logan Potts of Trion 13-3 before running into Cory Moten of Peppered who pinned him. The scheduled battle for fifth place with Gavin Carlton of Chattahoochee did not take place as the GHSA awarded all wrestlers in that position a fifth place. On the season Newman finished at 45-16 with his win total equalling the third best ever and easily the best ever for an SCHS freshman. The other Gamecock grappler to win a match in the Centreplex was senior Jemiah Stewart (190). After being pinned in his first match he came back with a 2-1 victory over Xzavion Colclough of Social Circle. Stewart, who wrestled his first match well after the season began because of injury, finished 2023-24 at 19-18 with a career record of 104-72. Others in Macon, who lost their first two matches, were senior Ryder Rankin (138) whose 14-12 “sudden victory” loss (a bout tied after three periods and the first wrestler to score wins) to Jack Fowler to Commerce was one of the most exciting of the tournament (His final season record was 28- 18 with a career of 107-79): freshman Wyatt Sowell (144) whose final season record was 30-21; junior Isaac Maust (150), a late addition to the team’s finalists (he finished seventh in the sectionals which qualifies as an alternate if someone in the top six cannot participate) who finished the season at 22-21; and senior Jason Zheng (165), who far and away did the best wrestling of his career over the final three weeks of the season who finished at 25-31 and 43-71 for his career. Beyond those in Macon, final records showed junior Kody Cochran 20- 27, freshman Breylon Daniels 17-19, sophomore Brody Taylor 9-18, senior Bo Doss 9-20, senior Ben Warren 0-4, sophomore Riley Oglesby 0-4, and freshman Lance Daniell 0-4. Left: Class A state runner-up at 157 David McFarland is flanked by Coach John Maust and Head Coach Griffin Greene (photo by Nikki McFarland) Right: Class A state fifth place finisher at 126 Jason Newman is flanked by Coach John Maust and Head Coach Griffin Greene (hoto by Nikki McFarland) Tanner Mask (photo by Nikki McFarland) ' 1 -A, Above: In the championship semifinal match David McFarland is about to pin Oglethorpe County's ,1 LADY GAMECOCK SOCCER DOWNS TREUTLEN COUNTY 6-0 Scoring twice in the first half against a very tough and homestanding Treutlen County team, the SCHS soccer Lady Gamecocks of Terry Markovcic pulled away from the Lady Vikings in the second half to win by a 6-0 margin in Soperton on February 15. Tomorrow the three time defending region champion Lady Gamecocks will begin another defense of their title as they host Bryan County at 5:00. A season ago SCHS defeated the Lady Redskins 1-0 in Pembroke and 1-0 (3-2 in a shootout) in Sylvania. Next Tuesday the Red and White will travel to Claxton to square off with the Lady Tigers. Woodville-Tompkins will be here on March 1. Treutlen County, a Sweet 16 participant from Class A D2 a year ago, put up a fight early but succumbed to the Lady Gamecocks superior firepower. Already with a roster of but 15, Markovcic’s troops played without their only senior, Honorable Mention All Region defender Gracen Kullberg (ankle). Still they held the home team without a shot while accumulating 20 of their own. A pair of goals each were scored by junior Kaylin Long and freshman Anna Kate Withrow while single goals went to sophomore Maddison Mitchell and freshman Rosa Campbell. Sadie Beth Sell picked up an assist. Sophomore Maddison Mitchell hits the corner kick (photo by Jamie Warren) SCHS sophomore Sadie Forehand and Johnson County's Avery Robinson battle for the ball (photo by Jamie Warren) Savannah Christian's Elena Tovar prepares to launch a free kick toward the SCHS goalie. The Lady Gamecock forward wall of Kaylin Long, Lilly Doss, and Charlie Brannen prepare (photo by Dana Doss) ARomm THE HORN CAN THERE BE NOTHING WRITE ABOUT? I AM TRYING TO FIND SOMETHING! TO Unless there is some special topic that jumps into my brain, my columns are frequently the last thing that I write. That is why I sometimes mention that I am writing a column about nothing. What that means is that my brain is “plum give out.” There has been so much else to write about that I have nothing left in the think-tank. Believe me, that is now. I think that I have seven other stories on these pages. Do remember, however, that a TV show famously pitched as a show about nothing, Seinfeld, ran on NBC for nine seasons and won ten primetime Emmys (yes I most definitely had to look that up). Here goes something to fit below wrestling and soccer on the first page of sports. Disclaimer, everything below is nevertheless important. With the first pitch of 2024 last Tuesday Gamecock baseball got started. Yes, track has not started, but for all practical purposes the spring sports have begun. The first track meet is not scheduled until March 12 at Bryan County. Usually half of the track teams are basketball players and both cage teams are still playing so the coaches can make no predictions. But everything is in full flight now. There will be some cold weather ahead but everyone just expects that to be true. What are baseball, soccer, and tennis without a contest or two in 40 degree temperatures with 10 mph winds? Well we had our third Gamecock to wrestle for a state championship on Saturday. CJ Wright (285) in 2017 and Justin Pearce (106) last year have done it. Both finished as runner-up. From the two extremes at each end of the weight classes came senior David McFarland on Saturday from the middle at 157. David gave us our third state runner-up. Definitely a big achievement. The young and the old this wrestling season put up some big single season numbers with McFarland and freshman Jason Newman each winning better than 40 matches. McFarland, who already owns the single season record of 51 from last season, won 46, while Newman won 45. With good health Newman should be the next to 100 sometime during the 2025-26 season. Another freshman, Wyatt Sowell, won 30. With the same stipulations (health) he will get there at some point. Team scoring for wrestling in a traditional tournament creates some interesting numbers. With three of our seven participants getting at least one win and two of them placing (5th and 2nd) SCHS finished 16th of 36 Class A schools scoring points. We finished well ahead of the other three schools from our area (MCA, ECI, and Bryan County) but they all beat us in duals. The top two schools in A, Social Circle (6) and Mt. Pisgah (3) won nine of the 14 weight classes. Read elsewhere, both SCHS basketball teams are heading to the state tournament. This is the second year in a row and just the third time ever that both are headed to the postseason together. The boys have, historically, just had problems. Burton Kemp Unless otherwise noted all articles in Sports are written by Burton Kemp, Sports Editor In winning the region consolation game against Savannah High, the Lady Gamecocks reached the 20 win plateau for just the ninth time in history, the boys have never made that mark. Next year’s region will lose Woodville-Tompkins and pick up Jenkins County, ECI, Portal, and MCA. We played all of them, save MCA, this year. The girls went 6-0 against that group while the boys went 1-5. Throw out WTHS and the girls, in regular season only, went 11-5 against next year’s region while the boys went 3-13 against next year’s region. Some folks seem to think that playing in D2 is going to be easy. Think again, I will cross this bridge later but it will be tougher to make the football playoffs this fall than it was last fall. We will have to get a lot better just to finish fourth. The 58th Super Bowl has come and gone. My column was done too soon to mention it last week. I can still say very truthfully that I have watched every one of them back to number 1 with the same Chiefs against the Packers. Played at the LA Coliseum, it was not close to a sell out. The most recent game was pretty bad in the first half but it got better and then it got a lot better. Too late in the process to debate 49ers’ coach Kyle Shanahan and his decision to receive the ball first in overtime. You have to get to a third possession to worry about it.
