About The Sylvania times. (Sylvania, Ga.) 2022-current | View Entire Issue (March 6, 2024)
thesylvaniatimes.com The Sylvania Times Wednesday, March 6, 2024 - Page 3 LADY GAMECOCK NETTERS DOWN VIDALIA AND ST VINCENT’S Lady Gamecock number three singles player senior Emma Rose Griner (photo by Dana Doss) Getting in but three of what was supposed to be six matches last week, the SCHS Lady Gamecocks of Kyle Reynolds took a pair of 3-2 road wins, one over AA Vidalia and another over AAA St. Vincent’s before losing 3-2 to AAAAAA Effingham County. Standing at 4-5, the three time defending region champions began 3-A D1 play yesterday by going to Claxton and will continue region play by hosting Metter on March 12. There will be nonregion matches at Burke County tomorrow and at Johnson County on March 13. On March 2 the team was to have played SEB, Bulloch Academy, and Johnson County in the Mill Creek Round Robin in Statesboro but all were postponed due to weather and will possibly not be made up. Lady Gamecock tennis began what was supposed to be the marathon week with a 3-2 win over homestanding Vidalia on February 26. It was their second consecutive victory that saw the three wins come from the three singles positions (SCPS on February 21). Lyla Johnson (6-1, 6-3), Caroline Boswell (6-1, 6-0), and Emma Rose Griner (6-1, 6-1) recorded the three wins while at doubles it was Garyn Howard/ Jayla Lovett (3-6, 2-6) and Kerrigan Bogart/ Ryland Reynolds (4-6, 0-6). Following their win in Vidalia the girls picked up their third consecutive 3-2 win in Savannah’s Bacon Park on February 28 at the expense of St. Vincent’s. This time all of the wins did not come from singles. Johnson (6-4, 6-4) and Boswell (6-2, 6-1) got two of the wins but the third came from the doubles team of Howard/ Lovett (4-6, 6-4, 10- 5). Both Griner (3-6, 2-6) and the team of Bogart/ Reynolds (4-6, 4-6) lost. What was supposed to have been the halfway point of a six match week turned out to be the final match of the week last Thursday. It was another 3-2 final, but on Leap Day it was AAAAAA Effingham County picking up the win. This time there was really no pivotal individual match. Three-set wins came from Boswell 1-6, 6-3, 10-5 and number two doubles Bogart/Reynolds 4-6, 6-1, 10-6. Johnson (1-6, 4-6), Griner (1-6, 2-6), and Howard/Lovett (2- 6, 4-6) fell in straight sets. At roughly the season’s halfway point individual records have senior Johnson at 5-4 at number one, freshman Boswell 6-3 at number two, and senior Griner 3-6 at number three. The quartet of seniors Howard and Lovett, junior Bogart, and freshman Reynolds have played all of the doubles matches in various combinations with a combined record of 3-6. Freshman Caroline Boswell has accumulated a 6-3 record thus far at number two singles (photo by Dana Doss) TENNIS GAMECOCKS END WEEK ON A ROUGH NOTE '•'resimian Noah Boykin has become the regular number hree singles for the Gamecocks (photo by Dana Doss) rnr Hoping to have three Saturday matches to push a trio of earlier week losses to much larger schools into the background, the SCHS Gamecock netters of Kyle Reynolds lost matches to the weather that would have been against SEB, Bulloch Academy, and Johnson County on Saturday in the Mill Creek Round Robin. Ending last week at 4-5 overall the Roosters began region play yesterday by by going to Claxton and will continue next Tuesday when Metter comes here. There are also nonregion matches at Burke County tomorrow and at Johnson County next Wednesday. One of the busiest scheduled weeks in tennis history began in Vidalia on Monday with a 3-2 loss that could have easily gone the way of the Gamecock. A single position in the lineup did not feature at least one set with a tiebreaker with third singles featuring a third-set tiebreaker. Wins came at two and three singles by JD Hall (7-6(4), 6-1) and Noah Boykin (6-2, 4-6, 12-10) while losses were John Boswell (6-7(4), 2-6), Josh Patel/Tucker Thomas (3-6, 6-7(3)), and Michael Weaver/Whit Morgan (2-6, 0-6). Following their tough loss to Vidalia, the team went to Bacon Park on February 28 to face powerhouse and AAAA Benedictine, falling 4-1. Missing number two singles Hall due to illness, that The team of seniors Josh Patel (serving) and Tucker Thomas is one of seven different combinations employed by Kyle Reynolds this season (photo by Dana Doss) portion of the lineup was a little different and saw Boswell (1-6, 2-6), Boykin (3-6, 3-6), and Patel (6-2, 0-6, 2-10) fall. The win came from the combination of Thomas/Morgan with a 6-4, 6-3 outcome. At two Bo Doss/Weaver fell 3-6, 0-6. Those combinations of doubles were the sixth and seventh employed during the season by Reynolds. Leap Day proved forgettable for the Gamecocks with Boswell, Boykin, Thomas/Patel, and Doss/Weaver each being shut while freshman Rece Chandler fell 3-6, 2-6 at third singles. SCHS was without a pair of starters, each out sick. Through nine matches individual records for the Roosters show senior Boswell 4-5 at number one, freshman Hall at 5-2 at number two, freshman Boykin, now the regular number three, at 4-2 overall, senior Patel at 1-4 mostly at number three, and freshman Rece Chandler 0-1 at number three. In doubles Reynolds has used seven different players in seven different combinations who have accumulated an overall record (as teams) of 7-11. The seven are seniors Thomas, Doss, Chandler and Patel, junior Weaver, and freshmen Boykin and Morgan. The 2024 SCHS tennis teams are : Front row: Nicole Zheng, Lauryn Herrington, Caroline Boswell, and Ryland Reynolds. Second row: Akeyiyanna Blount, Emma Rose Griner, Kerrigan Bogart, Garyn Howard, Reese Chandler, Josh Patel, Kade Chandler, Lyla Johnson, and Aaron Snow. Third row: Jayla Lovett, John Boswell, Noah Boykin, Michael Weaver, Tucker Thomas, Bo Doss, Lance Daniell, JD Hall, and Whit Morgan, (photo by Dana Doss) AROUND. the ham GHSA BASKETBALL FINALS, BACK TO 1989, CAREER POINTS RECORDS, AND THE ABA Burton Kemp Unless otherwise noted all articles in Sports are written by Burton Kemp, Sports Editor The finals of GHSA basketball are this week and the teams vying for the titles are known. In our own A D1 the boys teams are Paideia versus Mt. Vernon while the girls have Galloway versus St. Francis. The quartet are from the all- private school Region 6. Next year they get to compete in the playoffs against all private schools up to Class AAA. Apples to apples for them, no unfair advantages. Overall our region did not fare so well. We and Savannah High won first boys round games. The Blue Jackets went to the semifinals before losing to Paideia. Only Bryan County won on the girls side. They made it to the quarterfinals. Here I go again. I learned a new school when checking on the A D2 brackets: Greenforest Christian. Its proper name is Greenforest-McCalep Christian Academic Center. They are playing for the state championship in boys and girls. The boys are playing Manchester while the girls are playing Montgomery County. Greenforest’s boys won their first four playoff games by an average of 36 points while their girls won by an average of 21 points. The real FTE for Greenforest is only 140. There are 14 boys on their roster (10% of the school) and 11 girls on the roster (8% of the school). Based on scheduling in Maxpreps, I don’t think they play another sport. And private schools say they don’t recruit. Next year their playoffs will also include all privates up to AAA, each of whom can also recruit internationally. Multiple folks commented on my column from last week relative to the 1989 state playoff run. All had very fond memories of that trip to ABAC and remembered the disappointment of Macon. At the end of that season I thought that Harold Lee “Great” Scott was about to do for us what he had done at Nahunta (Brantley County), Cherokee County, and Savannah High. However, the next year, with all five starters from the Macon Coliseum gone, the boys’ record slipped to 10-14 and we didn’t get back to the state tournament until March of 1995. That season everything started in Macon. As Region 2AA runners-up we lost to Region 3AA champion Dodge County 69-51. There was not another trip to the state tournament for the boys until more than a decade passed. The 1988- 89 season became, and continues to be, an unfortunate anomaly. With all of the youth on this year’s team, maybe things will turn around and we can have multiple seasons of that variety. A couple of thoughts - Caitlin Clark was poised to, on Sunday, pass Pistol Pete Maravich as the all time leading scorer in NCAA Division 1 history man or woman. The first thought, Clark is in her fourth year as a starter and had 503 treys going into Sunday. When Maravich played, there was no three point shot and freshmen were not allowed to play varsity basketball. The second thought, at some point last week Labron James, already the all- time leading scorer in NBA history, passed the 40.000 career point mark. When James became the NBA’s all- time leading scorer he surpassed the record of Kareern Abdul-Jabbar (don’t call me Lew Alcindor). As of Sunday James had 14,670 career baskets. Abdul-Jabbar had 15,837 baskets. Some of Jabbar’s career was played with no three-pointer and when it came around his career numbers were 1-18. He played in the paint. Talk of the three-point basket at the professional level has to begin with the old American Basketball Association (ABA). I love to talk about the AFL but do you remember the ABA? There was that really cool red, white, and blue basketball. There was Dr. J. And there was the three point line. The ABA merged with the NBA for the 1979-80 season and the new, expanded, NBA adopted the three- point shot. The NBA did not adopt the multi-colored basketball. I never followed the ABA (unlike the AFL it had no national tv contract) and I really did follow the NBA, except for Wilt Chamberlain, so I don’t have a lot of thoughts on the upstart. When the leagues merged only four teams made the jump - the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, New York Nets, and the San Antonio Spurs. The Colonels of Kentucky and the Spirits of St. Louis folded. By the way, if you are too young to have followed Chamberlain, you should look him up. A single season points per game average of better than 50 for the 1961- 62 season to go with better than 25 rebounds per game that season makes it worth the look. Something I learned while looking up info for this last paragraph - while the NFL includes AFL stats into its record books, the NBA refuses to recognize ABA stats into its record books.
