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Bill Murphy Sports Editor | 770-718-3415 | sports@gainesvilletimes.com
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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
