By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com
 

          Sheila Toombs is likely to hear it for a few days.

          Central’s girls basketball team has seven seniors on this season’s squad, a record-setting group that went 23-5 and reached the second round of the GHSA Class AAA girls playoffs.

          Six are likely to get some form of a college scholarship, meaning the Chargers are probably in for major rebuilding.

          Hmmm, how does retirement sound?

          The announcement came on Twitter at 12:03 from the team’s account that Toombs has decided to retire after 32 years of coaching, the last 11 as head coach at Central.

          A Tweet a few minutes after noon made the announcement:

          Followed shortly by:

          Toombs leaves with more losing seasons than winning, but she leaves with a winning taste in her mouth.

          And the Central girls program hadn’t tasted much winning.

          The Chargers made the playoffs for the first time in 2010, Toombs’ fourth season. It took four more years before a return to the postseason, and they’ve been there ever since, rising in state polls and into the conversation of a Final Four contender.

          The program that was winless the year before Toombs arrived has gone 45-11 the past two seasons, going undefeated in Region 4-AAA play in 2017-18 only to lose to Peach County in the final seconds of the region tournament championship.

          Central won that tournament last season, and went on to host a state tournament game for the first time and win a state tournament game for the first time.

          Toombs coached at Manchester for nearly two decades and then as head coach at Twiggs County for a few years before taking over at Central.

          Last season, the Chargers lost by 1 to eventual champ Beach in the quarterfinals and this year by 9 at undefeated Franklin County.