Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

Sports VetoF. L Sports editor I Braves have the best and worst teams How about them Bravos! And, just what is wrong with the Bravos? The Atlanta baseball system is a wonderful system with a pair of teams heading in totally opposite di rections. On one hand, you have the parent club in Atlanta threatening the status of the 1927 Yankees; while on the other hand, you have the single A Macon club doing a startling imitation of the 1899 Cleveland Spiders. "Who are the Spiders?" you say. The Spiders played 154 games in 1899. They managed to win a grand total of 20 games. The Macon Braves will play around 150 games this year. So far, they have played 12 games and are yet to be victori ous. So bad are the Single A Braves that they are the only team in pro fessional baseball, at any level, to be without a win this late in the year. Eventually, Macon will bless Luther Williams Field with a win. The law of averages dictates that ev ery team will eventually win and ev ery team will eventually lose. The only question is how long Macon will go without a win. • • • The 1983 Atlanta club is one of my favorite clubs of all time. I re ally liked the lineup they had. Although Mark Lemke is a pretty good secondbaseman, my favorite player on that team was Glenn Hub bard. I enjoyed the effort he gave around the bag. Looking back at that team, it is interesting to note that only one player from that team, Steve "Bedrock" Bedrosian, on„the current Atlanta team. He took charge of a bullpen by committee to record nine wins against 10 losses and 19 saves. With the Braves 7-1 win over the Cardinals, the current Braves now tie that team for the best start in Atlanta history. The 'B3 version of the Braves opened the year with 13 wins, before losing the next five. If the Braves win one of their next four, they will have the best start by an Atlanta team. Atlanta is not the only hot team in the Georgia area. While the Hornets started off like the Macon Braves, in recent days they have played like the Atlanta Braves, winning their last three-four games to take second in their region. Westfield almost has a lock on the second place position. A few lucky breaks for the Hornets and they could win the region. Perry saw its season come to an end with a 4-1 loss to Jones County in Gray. However, next year should be a very good year in Perry baseball. The Panthers will lose only one se nior from this year's team. While that senior, Dallas Waldrip, will be very hard, if not impossible, to re place, they will return a lineup that has been filled with no less than six freshmen and sophomores. Perry looks to be loaded for the next two three years. Also, helping some, the Panthers move down in classification next year, from AAA to AA. While the Panthers were one of the smaller schools in AAA, they should be one of the larger schools in AA. • • • Speaking of Perry, if you see Ja son Brett, congratulate him for Sat urday. After a shaky first inning, the Perry shortstop, appearing on the mound against Appling County, re turned to pitch the final inning against the Pirates in a 13 inning 6- 5 win for the Panthers. Brett had 20 strikeouts in his time on the mound. • It Let me correct one little thing I printed in this space last week. The physicals for South Houston County will be given at Perry High School instead of Perry Hospital on May 21. Chip McCarty, head trainer for Westfield and Perry High School, said that if you want to compete in high school or middle school sports, male or female, you will be at Perry High School May 21—no excep tions. Cost is $5, and the physicals », are required by state law. Perry ends season with 4-1 loss at Jones By Phil Clark Special to the HTJ The Jones County Greyhounds are no strangers to baseball play offs. Under Cecil Patterson, they won 250 games, including the 1989 class AAA state championship. The team has two alumni in the major leagues, Willie Greene and Rondell White. And the Greyhounds are back in the playoffs, winning the season fi nale Monday night over the Perry Panthers , 4-1, in a game Perry had to win in order to keep playoff hopes alive. Even if the Panthers could have won, it would have taken one more game, and one more win, to ad vance. But with the victory, Jones County joins Ware County, Wayne County and Fitzgerald in the region playoffs. This game was everything a game of this importance should be. It was a classic pitchers duel be tween the 'Hounds Jason Maddox and Perry's Dallas Waldrip. Each pitcher gave up three hits. Maddox struck out 13, Waldrip 11. But in the only place that counts, Jones outscored Perry 4-1. It was a heartbreaking loss for coach Bob Jones and the young Panthers. But Jones said after the game, "We're a better team for this experience. We're young, and we'll be back next year with a contender. "Our young players gained a lot of experience, and a lot of maturity. Dallas (Waldrip) pitched well enough to win tonight, but their kid Maddox pitched the game of his life. He was stronger at the end than he was all night.” Maddox struck out the side in both the sixth and seventh innings in accumulating his total of 13. But Waldrip was just as tough as the big senior right hander battled the Greyhounds inning for inning until Jones finally broke through for a run in the fourth. Hornet thinclads see action By VETO F. ROLEY Staff Writer Westfield had a preview of the GISA AAA state tournament Saturday, taking part in a 13 team meet in Macon. The men's team raced to a fifth place finish, while the women's team finished in sixth. The men's score is a little deceiving since Nathan Greer and Brad Walton placed first and second in the pole vault, providing 18 of the men's 34 points. Both thinclad teams finished far behind meet winner, Stratford. In the women’s team, the Hornets finished with a 37, 120 points behind Stratford, which had a winning margin of 157-67. The men's squad finished 131 points behind Stratford. Although Stratford would enjoy a commanding lead, the margin was closer among the men than it was among the women, with the Tattnall men finising with a score of 129,37 points behind Stratford. "I'm a little disappointed," said women's track coach Donna Campbell. "I felt like we should have placed somewhere around third place." Although Campbell is realistic about her team's chances in the state meet, she hasn't given up on the region meet, noting that her runners have beaten both FPD, which finished second Saturday, and Tattnall, which finished fourth Saturday, in other meets. "It looks like we are going to be able to compete for the region championship," said Campbell. Jennifer Smith was the top point getter for the women thinclads, collecting 23.75 of the Hornet's 37 points. Smith was second in the long jump with a jump of just of 15 feet Please see Thinclads, page 9A Westfield solifies second with win over Monroe By VETO F. ROLEY Staff Writer Westfield took advantage of Mustang wildness to score four runs in the first and four runs in the seventh to beat Monroe Academy in region action Monday 9-4. The win solidifies second in the region for the Hornets. Westfield still has an outside shot at region leader Tattnall, but for the Hornets to win the region, they need help from some of the weaker teams in the region. The win also extends a three game Hornet winning streak. After starting the season with a 2-11 mark, the Hornets have improved their record to 5-11. All five of Westfield's wins have come in the region, with only two of the 11 losses coming inside the region. Tm happy with the way the last two weeks have gone," said Hornet coach Bert Brown. "Even with the two losses two weeks ago, v/e showed improvement. Maybe, we are heading to a peak at the right time." Senior pitcher Lon Talton is also starting to show the form that he showed during his sophomore and junior year, form that helped make him the ace of the Hornet With one out, cleanup hitter Ja maro Thomas lifted a foul pop down the third base line that short stop Jason Brett and thirdbaseman Terry Yawn couldn't catch up with. After the fly ball dropped be tween them down in the bullpen, Thomas delivered a double for the first hit off Waldrip. Then the hit Pirates and Panthers play 13 inning game Perry 200 100 200 000 1 69 f Appling 300 000 200 000 0 5 14 i ■k i Sr A ■ - * 'V % 1 “ Wg 1 Jason Brett gets Ice applied to his arm from athletic trainer Chip McCarty. Brett took the win against Appling County, getting 20 strikeouts In the game. staff. After starting the season with five straight losses, Talton holds all three recent Hornet wins, two as a starter and one in relief. "Lon (Talton) came into the sea son with a lot of self-imposed ex pectations," said Brown, who added that he and Talton talked two weeks ago, just before the Hornets and Talton went on the winning streak. "He’s more relaxed now. He is a lit tle more confident about the defense behind him." Brown added that the Hornets were starting to hit a little better in recent weeks. "We are getting to the point were we feel we have a chance when we get behind," he said. After allowing a single run in the top of the first, the Hornets struck for four in the bottom half of the inning. Four consecutive walks to Matt Shepley, Billy Kitchens, Troy Nuss and Lon Talton brought home the first run across the plate. A passed ball plated Kitchens, while moving Nuss and gallon into scoring posi tion. Nuss scored on Jake Walls grounder to second. Thad Hawk singled to left-center to plate Talton two outs in the game. The Hornets would add a much Houston Times-Journal ting star for the 'Hounds, first baseman Josh Still, delivered a line drive double to score Thomas with the first run of the game. Jones got another run in the fifth as Damon Redding reached on an error with one out, stole second and came around on another infield er ror. The run came without the bene Gators devour young Panthers By VETO F. ROLEY Staff Writer Ware County scored nine runs in the first two innings Friday after noon to dominate Perry. Although the Panthers would score two runs in the first and sec ond innings, the Gators would re main in control, adding two insur ance runs in the top of the fifth to take the 11-2 win. A win against the Gators would have given the Panthers a chance to make it into the Region 2AAA playoffs with a win against Jones County Monday night. However, any chances of the Panthers partici pating in post-season play were ended when the Greyhounds came through with four late inning runs to beat Perry in Gray 4-1, ending the Panthers season. After Ware County rocked Perry pitching sending 10 batters to the plate in the first for five runs on five hits, including a three RBI double by Benjie James, the Pan thers came back to break the score board with a single run in the bot tom of the inning. needed insurance run in the third. Clay Smith and Hawk reached on errors by the Mustang shortstop. Sheldon Shelton came through with an infield bunt single to third to load the bases. Once again, Mus tang wildness forced in another run, this time with Lance Watson draw ing the RBI walk. However, that would be all the runs the Hornets could muster as they left the bases loaded. Mustang pitcher Johnson came back to strike out the side, getting the top three hitters in the Hornets order. The third would be the second consecutive inning where Westfield left the bases loaded. In the first, two walks and a hits-batsman loaded the bases with one out. However, a strikeout and a fly to left would end the Hornet threat. The Mustangs slowly chipped away at the Westfield lead, scoring two in the third and one in the fifth, setting up potential disaster for the Hornets in the later innings. For most of the season, the Hornets have had problems gelling people out in the sixth and seventh innings, losing many games in their opponents last at-bats. However, the situation was dif ferent Monday at the Hornet's Nest. With Talton tirine. Brown went to Wednesday, April 20,1994 Houston Times -Journal fit of a hit. With runs on the board, Maddox got even tougher. Jones got two more runs for Maddox in the sixth to take a 4-0 lead. Maddox saw his shutout go by the boards as the Panthers got one in the seventh. Jason Brett, who had two of One of the cardinal rules in baseball is to never walk the leadoff hitter in an inning, especially with a big lead. However, the Gators would break that rule, walking Travis Cantrell to start the game. The Panthers would make them pay for that mistake. After the walk, Cantrell stole second. He moved to third on Terry Yawn’s grounder to second. The Panthers scored their first run when the Gators exchanged the run for an out on Jamie Walker's grounder to first. In the second inning, the Gators again sent 10 players to the plate, this time scoring four runs on three Soccer team wins fourth By Chad Shannon Lewis Special to the HTJ Granted, the Perry High soccer team doesn't have a great deal of tradition—at least, not a winning one. But if they continue to improve and keep their winning streak alive, his bullpen to start the sixth in ning, bringing in Brian Staines. Staines, who started the game at * • EXT) jl il mmgumt 31 bp 4c wm Clay Smith gets chased back to first against Monroe Academy Monday. Smith paced the Hornet offense with two base hits. Page 7A Perry's three hits, lined a shot past the centerfielder for a triple to lead off the inning. Maddox struck out Tim Allen; but, the ball eluded catcher William Whiddon, allowing Alen to reach first. However, Brett was forced to hold at third. One out later, Nathan Long's Please see Jones, page 9A By VETO F. HOLEY Staff Writer It was a game that Perry had to win. While Appling County had long since been eliminated from playoff contention, they still wanted recognition as spoilers. In the end, it was a classic, as fans got to see the equivalent of two games for the price of one, with the Panthers pulling off the 6- 5 win in 13 innings. Junior Jason Brett did everything that he could do against the Pirates, recording the win on the mound with 20 strikeouts, and getting the "game-winning" hit against Appling twice, once in the seventh and once in the 13th. "It was a tremendous ballgame,” said Perry head coach Jones, who added that the effort his team showed in hanging in through extra innings overshadowed the mistakes that they made. "The mistakes we made as a team, baserunning, fielding and hiuing, did not cost us the ballgame." "It was a great effort by Jason (Brett)," said Jones. "He pitched one of the finest ballgames I’ve seen him throw. He did a magnificent job in the eighth, ninth and 10th innings hanging in there when he was tired." After stranding six Pirate runners in extra-innings, Brett got the Panthers back on top in the 13th. Jamie Walker started the inning Please see Extra, page 9A hits. The Panthers would get their fi nal run of the afternoon in the bot tom half of the second. Jason Brett led the inning off with a single. One out later, he moved to scoring position on Ben Hulbert's single. Derrick Oliver picked up the RBI with a two out single. Tim Allen and Oliver paced the Perry offense with two hits each. Oliver was perfect at the plate, get ting hit-by-a-pitch on his third trip to the plate. The improved Ware County's record to 17-3 on the season, and 9- 1 in the region. they may just earn the tradition they desire—one of a champion. After knocking off Columbus and Kendrick for their first-ever back-to-back victories, the Panthers took their record-breaking streak on Please see Soccer, page 9A third, would not allow a single Mustang runner in his two innings Please see Wastfleld, page 9A