By Greg Sullivan
Sports Editor

Just like last year Andrea Ross qualified for state discus competition.
Ross, however, wasn't the only Lady Dogs track team member that turned in a good performance at the region track meet on Saturday and Monday at East Jackson.
Sarah Mullins took fourth place in the region 800 meter race, Alex Adams took fifth in the 3200 meters and Brittany Hill finished fifth in the long jump.
"I thought the girls came out and performed well," said Bulldogs track coach Charlemagne Gibbons. "They're a young team and they've got a bright future."
The boys team, meanwhile, will head to East Jackson for their own region track meet on Friday.

By Greg Sullivan
Sports Editor

The Diamond Dogs travel to Fannin County on Friday afternoon for a 1:30 p.m. game with the Rebels in the opening round of Region 8-AA playoff action.
The Dogs still qualified for their region tournament despite dropping some tough games to region foes of the likes of North Oconee and Oglethorpe in recent days.
After being in the mix for second place not long ago, the team will have to settle for a four seed in the south sub-region regular season and hope to earn more respect with a good region tourney outcome where anything can happen.
The JV Dogs, meanwhile, had a tough week last week. After putting together some impressive win streaks not long ago, they dropped contests with Eastside, 6-3, and Rockdale, 13-2.
"In the end we gave them too many runs via errors," said JV Dogs Head Coach Josh Reeves of the Eastside loss. Reeves said the game was competitive throughout and he thought some of his players played well in the effort.
"J.R. Messer, Brian Green and Michael Meadow hit well for us and Drew Stapleton pitched a solid game."
Against Rockdale, the JV Dogs were short-handed, but they still gave a good effort.
"All of my guys are hard workers and they stepped up to the challenge." Terence Harper went 1-2 in the loss with a run scored.

By Greg Sullivan
Sports Editor

The Morgan County High School men's golf team finished their season Monday at the Gold Creek golf club in Dawson County for their region tournament finishing eight strokes out of second place.
A second place finish would have sent the team to the state tournament.
According to Coach Tom Duff, the team's low scorer Monday was Zach Bryant, followed by Conner Perry and Dylan Bushway.
The young team improved throughout the course of the year, but now the young team's future looks especially bright, said Duff.
"This year was what we would expect from two freshmen and two sophomores," he said. The team expects to have Morgan County Middle School eighth grader Andrew Phillips join their team next year, which Duff said he believes will give the team another boost.
"With what we have coming back, and no seniors, we should fair quite well in our new [Class] AAA regions next season," Duff said.

Both squads to host home playoff game

By Greg Sullivan
Sports Editor

Cedar Shoals High School's tennis squads made the trip down to Madison on Thursday with intentions of teaching the Dogs and Lady Dogs a lesson on their home court, but the home teams were up to the challenge.
Both the boys and girls teams defeated their Jaguar opponents 4-1, each only dropping their first singles matches.
Daniel Smith, Logan Plumly, Skip Lewan and Brett Richardson, along with Dillon Moore and Blake Brand all got wins for the Dogs against Cedar Shoals.
Picking up wins for the Lady Dogs were Lauren Lindsey, Mary Helen Trulock, Victoria Woodruff and Emily Jones, along with Layne Jackson and Katherine Cooper.
Morgan County's teams struggled the weekend before Thursday's win, with both teams losing to Spalding. The boys team's loss was a tough 3-2 decision which served as motivation against the Athens school Thursday.
The teams look to build on momentum from Thursday's wins over Class AAAA Cedar Shoals as they head into their biggest week of the year.
Morgan County hosted rival Greene County on Tuesday. The team will then head to East Jackson for the region tournament where both the boys and girls will be number two seeds in their half of the bracket.
"We will have to work very hard this week in practice in order to be ready for the playoffs," said Morgan County Head Coach Jim Fowler. "Our teams will have to play focused, fundamental tennis to advance past the first round of the region tournament."
"I hope our teams take the positive momentum from their Cedar Shoals wins and continue to play well."

By Greg Sullivan
Sports Editor

These Tigers were better than the Greene County Tigers the Dogs had seen the week before, and if you believe in omens this one looked early on like it could be going in the wrong direction last Wednesday in Madison.
Washington-Wilkes got a lead-off solo homer to start things off against Morgan County pitcher Clay Duvall en route to a three-run first inning, leaving the Dogs to play catch up.
But Duvall showed something that may prove to be helpful to the Dogs in the post-season; perseverance. And his teammates followed suit.
"I tried to pitch my hardest," said Duvall. "I knew this was a huge region game. I knew we had to win."
After a rocky first inning where he gave up three earned runs, Duvall gave up no more earned runs for the remainder of the game on his way to the win he was looking for, and it was a grueling 7-inning complete game win, which is about as hard-earned as it gets at the high school level.
After putting up two runs in the first inning and one in the second, the Dogs' offense had things evened up going into the bottom of the third inning. And in the bottom of the third the Dogs wrestled away control of the game.
With two outs in the third and two runners on, the Dogs' Kyle Burden made up his mind to not let Wilkes find an easy way out of the inning.
Burden connected with a pitch and sent the ball out beside the telephone pole behind the left field fence.
"I just wanted to get a hit," said Burden. "It felt good."
He did get a hit; a three-run homer. The blast ignited a big inning for the Dogs, who would go on to get two more runs with two outs in the inning on their way to posting five runs in the third. With the big third inning behind them the Dogs went on to an 8-6 win in the crucial region match-up.