About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 18, 2018)
SPORTS Bill Murphy Sports Editor | 770-718-3415 | sports@gainesvilletimes.com Sftncs gainesvilletimes.com Tuesday, December 18, 2018 GEORGIA BULLDOGS JOHN BAZEMORE I Associated Press Georgia offensive lineman Isaiah Wilson (79) sits on the field as Alabama players celebrate after the Southeastern Conference championship game, Saturday, Dec. 1, in Atlanta. Georgia players unhappy with playoff snub BY PAUL NEWBERRY Associated Press ATHENS, Ga. — A year ago, Georgia was getting ready for the College Football Playoff. Now, it feels like the Bull dogs are preparing for the Letdown Bowl. Georgia missed out on the four-team playoff field after another bitter loss to Ala bama, forcing it to settle for the Sugar Bowl as a consola tion prize. While the New Orleans game occupies a treasured place in the school’s storied football history — “Ohhh, look at the sugar falling out of the sky,” the late Larry Munson said in one of his most famous radio calls — it doesn’t mean a whole lot to the current group of players. “I have no idea about any of that,” said corner back Eric Stokes, a redshirt freshman who has never been to the Big Easy. “I’m lost.” A quick refresher: The Sugar Bowl is where the Bulldogs clinched their only consensus national championship after the 1980 season with a 17-10 victory over Notre Dame. It’s also where the Bulldogs missed out on another national title at the end of the 1982 season, losing 27-23 to Penn State in the final game of Herschel Walker’s brilliant college career. When Georgia (11-2) faces Texas (9-4) at the Superdome on New Year’s Day, it will mark the Dawgs’ 10th appear ance in the game — far more than any other bowl — but their first since 2008, when they blew out Hawaii 41-10 and finished No. 2 in the final Associated Press rankings. None of that means much to the current team. These guys would much rather be in Texas or South Florida, the sites of this year’s semifinal games. “If you go around the team and ask everybody, ‘Hey is this where we wanted to be?’ the answer is, ‘No, it’s not,”’ quarterback Jake Fromm conceded. “But we’re excited to be here. It’s the Sugar Bowl. It’s a really big bowl, so we’re excited, we’re working, we’re trying to get better. ” Coach Kirby Smart acknowledged the challenge of firing up his team for a game that seems to have few ramifications beyond pride — especially for those who played in last year’s memo rable playoff run, when the Bulldogs defeated Oklahoma 54-48 in overtime at the Rose Bowl semifinal game, before losing to Alabama 26-23 in another overtime thriller at the national championship game. Georgia had a shot at get ting back to the playoff when it faced No. 1 Alabama two weeks ago in the Southeastern Conference title game. But the Crimson Tide rallied from a pair of 14-point deficits, defeating the Bulldogs 35-28 to lock up the top seed in the playoff. Georgia finished fifth in the rankings — one spot shy of the postseason games that really matter. “It’s been a big topic of con versation for our staff,” Smart said. “A traditionalist like myself — probably my age and older — see bowl games, the Sugar Bowl in particular, a certain type way.” The players? They see it an entirely different way. “It’s kind of like talking to our players about Herschel Walker. They don’t have memories of that,” Smart said. “Shoot, our guys don’t remember Robert Edwards. You know, it’s just very dif ferent and a very delicate situation, because you have to make football meaningful and fun.” So, Smart and his staff are having to do a selling job. “To us, there is a ton mean ingful about an opportunity to play another football game,” he said. “To increase your leg acy as a senior class, to be one of those three most winning senior classes to ever come through here, there’s value in that.” HIGH SCHOOL WRESTLING I Athlete of the Week Chattanooga champion AUSTIN STEELE I The Times North Hall’s Logan Hawthorne pins East Hall’s Ramon Castillo during the final day of the Hall County wrestling championship on Saturday, Dec. 8, at Gainesville High School. Logan Hawthorne became North Halls first wrestler to take home an individual championship at the McCallie Invitational BY SARAH WOODALL swoodall@gainesvilletimes.com In the eyes of his coach, North Hall junior Logan Hawthorne is an athlete that epitomizes the Trojan wrestling way. While sometimes unmatched in size, the 195-pound Hawthorne makes up for it with toughness and stamina. That formula helped him to pull off something no other Tro jans grappler has done before him during the 38th-annual McCallie Invitational on Saturday in Chatta nooga, Tenn. The junior impressed at one of the southeast’s most esteemed tour naments in high school wrestling, on the way to becoming the first in program history to be crowned individual champion. For his efforts, he is the Times’ Athlete of the Week. “Anybody who’s ever coached at North Hall for a long time knows that how you win at North Hall is through discipline and men tal toughness,” North Hall coach David Nichols said. “And Logan exemplifies that as well as anybody in our program.” The reigning Class 3A duals champion Trojans also produced four additional top-three nods as they went on to place second in the 45-team tournament featuring some of the top teams from all over the southeast, including tourna ment host McCallie and Cleveland in Tennessee. On paper, three of Hawthorne’s four victories on Saturday came via pinfall, including the cham pionship match in which he took down Carrollton’s Chase Sippola in just five minutes, 18 seconds. Hawthorne powered through the lower stages, defeating Northwest Whitfield’s James Seay (Fall 3:31), Jacob Goldfin of Oak Mountain (Fall 2:12) and Demarcus Wil liams of Woodland ( S-Vl 3-2) in the semis, a bout that Hawthorne ultimately won through sheer grit. Clearly unmatched in athleti cism and quickness of feet, accord ing to Nichols, Williams captured the first two points of the match via a single takedown, though Haw thorne was able to muscle his way to an escape twice, grabbing the next two points to deadlock the match at 2-all and force overtime. And that’s when Hawthorne had him. Williams, clearly winded and slow to get back to the center of the mat, had already been warned by the official for stalling (a rule enforced when a wrestler fails to get back within the 10-foot circle in enough time to continue the match). In the third period, Haw thorne’s opponent would not heed the official’s message. Nichols recalled Williams — lying on the mat exhausted — could find his feet and return to the center, and the official tagged ■ Please see ATHLETE, 2B COLLEGE BASKETBALL I Gardner-Webb 79, Georgia Tech 69 Runllin , Bulldogs stun Jackets BY MATT WINKELJ0HN Associated Press ATLANTA — DJ Laster scored 20 of his career high- tying 25 points in the first half, and Gardner-Webb shot nearly as well as it had all season on Monday night in a 79-69 win at Georgia Tech. The Runnin’ Bulldogs (8-5) stunned Georgia Tech (5-4) with a pair of baskets in the final four seconds of the first half on the way to a 45-38 lead and then pushed the lead to 13 points in the second half before holding off Georgia Tech in McCamish Pavilion. Laster, a senior forward, also had nine rebounds, and David Efianayi and David Perez scored 12 points each, as Gardner-Webb made 31 of 59 shots (52.5 percent). That came close to the 54.5 percent mark they had in a 97-77 win at Savannah State on Nov. 16. Junior center James Banks III scored a career-high 22 points for Georgia Tech while grabbing 12 rebounds, and sophomore guard Josh Alvarado added 19 points for the Yellow Jackets. Gardner-Webb carried the action for much of the first half with the exception of a stretch where Curtis Haywood II made four 3-pointers shots in a 14-2 run for Tech. The Yellow Jackets took their biggest lead at 31-27 on his long ball with 5:54 to go before intermission. Haywood scored all 12 of his points in the first half. The Runnin’ Bulldogs rallied back with Laster in the middle of most of it. He scored 10 points as Gardner- Webb closed the first half with a 12-5 run. After Efianayi made a pair of free throws with four sec onds remaining, COLLEGE LOOTBALL Brian Kelly named AP Coach of die Year BY RALPH D. RUSSO Associated Press Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly is The Associ ated Press college football Coach of the Year and the third coach to win the award twice since it was established in 1998. Kelly received 16 of 58 first-place votes from AP college football poll voters and 81 total points. Alabama’s Nick Saban was second with 16 first- place votes and 66 points and Central Florida first-year coach Josh Heupel was third with 33 points (five first- place votes). Twelve coaches received at least one first-place vote and eight received at least three for the award announced Monday. Washington State’s Mike Leach finished fourth with 26 points (three first-place votes) and Syracuse’s Dino Babers was fifth with 25 (five first-place votes). Kelly joins Saban and TCU’s Gary Patter son as two-time winners. Kelly was also coach of the year in 2012. As he did in 2012, Kelly has guided the Fighting Irish to a 12-0 season and a chance to compete for the national championship. Notre Dame played Alabama in the BCS championship game after the 2012 season and lost 42-14. The third- ranked Irish will face No. 2 Clem- son in the Cotton Bowl on Dec. 29 in their first College Football Playoff appearance. This undefeated season for Notre Dame seems very different than that one and it comes just two seasons after Notre Dame finished 4-8. Kelly overhauled his staff and his approach after that debacle, bringing in new coordinators on both sides of the ball. He made a concerted effort to be more involved with all aspects of the team. “I think I’m a better leader of our pro gram,” Kelly told AP. “The organization has gotten so much bigger. The ability to create the right energy and day-to-day culture is dif ficult. I think I’ve gotten a lot better a leading that large group on a day-to-day basis.” Kelly is 81-34 in nine seasons at Notre Dame and he credited his players for helping him improve as a coach. “Sitting them down and listening to them is similar to any good business or CEO sit ting down and listening to his employees and getting feedback from them as well. I think where I made some real strides was spending more time with our players and get ting feedback from them,” Kelly said. The Irish rebounded to 10-3 last season and entered this season with similar expectations. After a 3-0 start, Kelly made the pivotal move of switching quarterback from senior Brandon Wimbush to junior Ian Book. Ozone baseball camp to be held later this month The annual Ozone youth baseball Christmas Camp will be held this month, the first slate beginning Dec. 21-22, and the second Dec. 26-27 at Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville. Players aged 7-13 will receive instruction from some of the best, including Gainesville gradu ate and former big-league pitcher Micah Owings, Gainesville gradu ate and minor-league pitcher Will Maddox, former Atlanta Brave Matt Tuiasosopo and former minor-league player JonMark Owings. The camp runs from 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. on all days. The Cost is $60 per session or $100 for both sessions For more details on the camp or how to register, visit www.theozon- eesi.com. Times Staff Reports Kelly
