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themillennews .com The Millen News Wednesday, December 29, 2021 Page 7 War Eagles Basketball News Christmas break allows for extra practice time and some days off between games before the final stretch of the season sets in. During Christmas week, the War Eagles and Lady War Eagles only faced one opponent, Jefferson County. The games were played on December 21 st and in the first game of the night, the Lady War Eagles lost 35-21. In the second matchup of the night, Jefferson County, from Class 2A, defeated the War Eagles 59-50. The War Eagles and Lady War Eagles did pick up two wins in the week before Christmas break. On De cember 17th, the Lady War Eagles defeated McIntosh County Academy 44-30 and the War Eagles won 40-38. On Saturday night, Decem ber 18th both teams scored a victory over EBA. The girls’ team won 48-35, and the boys’ team won 46-28. The Lady War Eagles and War Eagles will only play one game this week, on Tuesday December 28th the teams will host Treutlen High School. The next game after that will not take place until January 7th at Metter, and then on January 8th at home against Screven County. The basketball Eagles will have 14 games left in the season that will conclude the first week of February. After that, regional tournament play will begin. These next few busy basketball weeks, make plans to come out and support War Eagle basketball. In other games of note in the last few weeks around the region, the previous un beaten Portal Panthers lost in regional play. They squared off against ECI who had not won a game all season. ECI upset the Panthers 56-53. In boys’ basketball, this put a three-way tie between Bryan, Screven, and Portal as each have only lost one game. Up dated standings are included on the sports’ page. Regional Alignments Will Look Different in 2022 The 2021/2022 Georgia High School Athletics seasons are still rolling forward, there are changes on the horizon for the 2022- 2024 season. The last couple of years, the Jenkins County War Eagles have had to compete within the region against Bryan County, Metter, Screven County, Claxton, McIntosh County Academy, Portal, and ECI. These opponents have provided the War Eagles some excellent regional competition. However, after a recent meeting in December of this year, the regional alignments have been shaken up. In the past, GHSA has consisted of Classes 1A-7A, with the inclusion of Class A Private. In recent months, several of the Class A Private schools have departed the GHSA to play in the GISA division. As a result. Class A Private will no longer exist in GHSA sports. A new class for sports competitions has been created. Starting in the 2022/2023 school year, the GHSA will now have Class A-Division 1 and Class A Division 2, in addition to Classes 2A-7A. This new classification will not affect the larger schools in 2A-7A, but locally and for the Jenkins County War Eagles, there will be big changes to the regional schedule. Jenkins County will now be in Class A-Division 2, and they will remain in Region 3. However, typical regional opponents like Bryan County, Met ter, Screven County, and Claxton will now be moved to Class A-Division 1. Jenkins County will have familiar opponents ECI and Portal within their region with the addition of Montgomery County. At this time, schedules for the 2022/2023 seasons have not been released; it is unsure if opponents like Bryan, Metter, or Screven will be on the schedule. Other familiar opponents that will be in Class A-Division 2 include Warren County, Telfair County, and Aquinas. While those three schools will be in different regions, they could become play off opponents. In the classifications 2A-7A there were several teams that made jumps in classes for the 2022/2023 school year. Locally, Burke County will make the jump from 3 A to 4A. Girls Basketball Regional Standings Team Regional Record Screven County 4-0 McIntosh County Academy 2-1 Claxton 2-1 Bryan County 3-2 Jenkins County 2-2 ECI 1-4 Portal 0-2 Metter 0-2 Boys Basketball Regional Standings Team Regional Record Bryan County 4-1 Screven County 3-1 Portal 2-1 Jenkins County 3-2 Metter 1-1 McIntosh County Academy 1-2 ECI 1-4 Claxton 0-3 CAPITAL ONE GEORGIA vs MICHIGAN" ORANGE BOWL DECIUBER 31. 2 ] 21 HMD DECK STADIUM Friday night, the Georgia Bulldogs will faceoff against the Michigan Wolverines in the College Football National Semifinals. The winner will advance to play in the National Championship game on January 10th. New Year’s Eve Clash While many will be anticipating the ball drop in Times Square so that we can all celebrate the New Year, locally most eyes will be turned to a kickoff that takes place at 7:30 PM on New Year’s Eve. At 7:30 in Miami, FL, the Georgia Bulldogs will face off against the Michigan Wolverines. The winner will advance to play in the College Football National Championship that is to be played on January 10th. The championship game will be between the winner of Cincinnati and Alabama. The last time these two teams met up on the field was 1965. The Bulldogs won that matchup by a score of 15- 7. The only other matchup between the two teams was in 1957 and the Wolverines won that game. The short history between these two teams makes the anticipation for fans even greater. The Bulldogs enter as a 7.5-point favorite. If there are any local fans that will be traveling to Miami this weekend for the game, send us your pictures to be included in next week’s issue of the Millen News. Or, if you are watching from home send us a picture as well. You can send your pictures to pastorbradasburv@gmail.com or to themillennews@ gmail.com. In addition, if you are going to any other bowl games this football season, we want to see those pictures as well. - Coach Brad pastorbradasbury@gmail.com The Sports Update Christmas is over and we are quickly flying into 2022. Unfortunately, as we head into 2022 the sport’s schedules are being altered constantly as a new variant of Covid-19 spreads across the country. In March of 2020 the sports world began to shut down quickly from a new vims that was spreading fear across the nation. Now, two years later, we are still seeing the effects. College foot ball bowl games and college basketball games have quickly been cancelled in the past week. There are minors and talks of more games being cancelled in the days ahead. Hopefully, we will not see the cancellations on the scale of 2020. The Atlanta Falcons are facing their last two games of the season. The games left are against the Bills and the Saints. Winning both games would allow the Falcons to finish with a winning record, and potentially a birth in the playoffs. With only two games, the Falcons are still on the outside looking in for the playoffs even after their win on Sunday against the Lions. The Atlanta Hawks are pres ently sitting at 15-17 for their season record. The Hawks most recently faced off against the New York Knicks in one of the NBA’s Christmas Day games. The Hawks lost that game 101-87. After just falling short of the NBA champion ship game last year, the Hawks are struggling to get momen tum this season. With fifty games remaining, the Hawks have plenty of time to turn the season around. Conference play is begin ning for college basketball. The Georgia Southern men’s basketball team enters confer ence play with a 7-5 record. Their last game before the conference play starts was against Covenant College. Georgia Southern won this game 85-51. Their first games of the conference portion of the season will take place Thursday night at Arkansas Little Rock and then on January 1 at Arkansas State. The Lady Eagles of Geor gia Southern have started out their season 9-3. They won their last non-confer ence of the season over Bethune Cookman 88-59. They will start Thursday night at Arkansas State and then Saturday at University of Arkansas Little Rock. In women’s college basket ball, the University of South Carolina Lady Gamecocks are ranked number one with a 12-0 record. It appears that the Lady Gamecocks from Columbia, South Carolina are the team to beat this season in NCAA Women’s Basketball. On the men’s side, it is the Baylor Bears who are on top ranked num ber one. Major League baseball is still in a lockout. The days until Spring Training will be quickly approach ing. Baseball fans will be watching anxiously to see if the season is going to be dis rupted this season. Baseball was really starting to grow in momentum once again, a lengthy lockout could really put a dent in fan support. While it may not feel like it this week, the cold days of winter are approaching us. In these cold days, get a blanket and watch a classic sports movie to help pass the time. I highly recom- mend Field of Dreams or Hoo- siers. Both are worth helping pass some time waiting to get outside and enjoy the spring weather. Until next time, this has been a quick sports update of all things sports happen ing around us! On Sunday, the Atlanta Falcons defeated the De troit Lions by a score of 20-16. Pictured is quar terback Matt Ryan who was 18/24 passing on the day with one touchdown and no interceptions, (picture by the Associated Press) Georgia Southern men’s and women’s basketball teams will begin conference play on Thursday night. Both teams will be on the road all week long as they face off against their first conference opponent of the season, (photo by Georgia Southern Athletics) We are H onored to Sponsor Jenkins County Sports! Planters Electric Membership Corporation .providing more than just ELECTRICITY A Touchstone Energy® Cooperative