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4B I DAWSON COUNTY NEWS I dawsonnews.com
Wednesday, April 3,2019
FROM 1B
Soccer
penalty kicks.
Lacey continued to predict
GAC’s shots and knocked away
all but one, while the Lady
Tigers’ kickers did their work
by scoring on four of their
shots and Dawson County went
on to record the win over the
Spartans and leap to the top of
region 7-AAA.
With the Spartans under their
belts, the Lady Tigers traveled to
Lumpkin County to face their
regional rival Indians in a battle
for first-place.
In a game that lived up to the
hype for Lady Tigers’ fans
Lacey turned in another shut
out performance and Muenchen
led a flurry of scoring from the
Lady Tigers’ high-powered
offense as the girls extended
their overall record to 11-1-2
and remained undefeated in the
region with a record of 4-0.
Dawson County High School
entered spring break and the
Lady Tigers will not see action
again until April 12 when they
are on the road against Fannin
County for another critical
regional match. Hamby
expressed some concern about
the length of time but believed
his team would be prepared for
the final two games of the year.
“We have to survive spring
break and make sure that we
don't lose our conditioning,”
Hamby said. “The rest isn't a
bad thing for them to recover,
but there is happy medium.
Hopefully, we can come out
after spring break and be ready
for a playoff run.”
METROMARKETimedia
Senior Maggie Schandera launches into her shot-put routine at the GACS
Invitational on March 16.
FROM 1B
Schandera
the season’s premiere event thus far, the
GACS Invitational on March 16.
Schandera originally joined the team
in her freshman year as a triple jumper
and sprinter but was forced to change
over to the throwing events after she
suffered a torn ACL playing in the
Christmas basketball tournament as a
junior.
Track and field head coach Arron
Haynes remembered the great lengths
Schandera went to remain a competitive
member of the team after her injury.
“She threw from a chair early in the
season until the doctor cleared her from
knee surgery,” Haynes said. “She is such
a fun young lady to be around, but is
very competitive and a very hard work
er, and I know that she will do well in
college.”
In many ways the ACL tear marked a
major transition in Schandera’s athletic
career as it not only changed her track
and field disciplines, it ended her time
on the basketball courts and threatened
to end her most precious position as the
starting pitcher for the Dawson County
Lady Tigers varsity softball team.
“I had kind of decided since I started
high school, actually more like in my
eighth-grade year, that I would focus
more on softball,” Schandera said. “So,
basketball became just my high school
sport while I kept playing with travel
softball teams.”
The daughter of Lamar and Connie
Schandera, she grew up in a family with
a sporting history that was used to the
occasional injury suffered on the field of
play, but the ACL was different.
“We were so used to seeing her
bounce back from her injuries with
barely a scratch or a pause for breath,”
Connie said. “To see her not bounce
back very fast, to struggle with it was
tough.”
“And to be told that there was a
chance that she might not be able to
play at all,” Lamar added. “That was
tough too.”
Through it all, the surgery, the physi
cal therapy and her father’s rule that she
wasn’t allowed to even think about
throwing a softball until May at the ear
liest, Schandera knew that she was not
going to let her team down come the
fall.
“The ACL taught me about myself. It
showed me how determined I was and
how I wasn’t going to let one little thing
set me back to the point of quitting,”
Schandera said. “I knew I was going to
be back, and I knew I would be better.”
After a recovery period of just over
seven months, Schandera not only
returned to the mound for the opening
game of the year, she went on to pitch
all but one and two-thirds innings of the
entire season as she hurled the rock an
incredible 1,919 times over 148.1
innings and appeared as the starting
pitcher in every game for the Lady
Tigers in 2018.
Schandera led Dawson County to
appearances in both the region and state
tournaments behind a 77 percent first
pitch strike ratio that delivered 76 strike
outs versus nine walks and a 2.36 sea
son ERA. For her career, she totaled 228
strike outs against a meager 22 walks
and served as the Lady Tigers sole
pitcher for both her junior and senior
season.
For her efforts, Schandera was named
a member of the Region 7-AAA First
Team, the Blitz Player of the Year and,
for the second year in a row, the North
Georgia Sports Fink Player of the Year.
Junior Varsity Head Coach and Varsity
pitching coach Fogan Allen has coached
Schandera since the ninth grade when
she split her time as the primary starting
pitcher for the JV Fady Tigers and the
varsity team.
“She has a strong will to win and will
Photos by Bob Christian Dawson County News
Senior Maggie Schandera started every game for the LadyTigers softball team during the 2018 season.
always be at her best. She has a strong
work ethic and it was very obvious how
much that she loved softball,” Allen
said. “We could always count on
Maggie to throw strikes and give us an
opportunity to be in every game.”
That ability is exactly what drew
Schandera to the attention of the
Georgia Highland College Cougars ath
letic program, and after she attended a
campus visit in October of 2018
Schandera signed a full scholarship to
play softball for the two-year school in
Cartersville.
Although it is not in her plans to play
multiple sports in college, she anticipat
ed remaining busy as she not only is
prepared to contribute immediately on
the field but has tackled a tough aca
demic workload as she begins pursuit of
her career goal in pediatric nursing with
the hopes of one day working in a Neo
natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
“I just love kids. I know it’s going to
be hard because it will be sick kids, not
in the best of health,” Schandera said.
“But if I can help sick kids get healthy,
that would be cool.”
With graduation quickly approaching,
Schandera looks forward to all the new
adventures headed her way, but also
expressed an already building desire to
stay in touch with her hometown roots
and give back to the community that has
given her so much.
“I am happy to be able to get out
there. I’m excited to see what its like to
go somewhere and not know anyone.
It’s going to be fun,” Schandera said.
“But I definitely want to keep softball a
part of my life after college. I would
love to coach, at the least, especially if I
have a little girl someday.”
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