Thursday's Central Georgia Daily News 'n Notes: Bleckley County's Willie Taylor making noise out west; Braves; UGA hoops, Tech hoops; Honor Roll (Mercer, GMC, Georgia College)
Thursday's Central Georgia - and of interest to Central Georgia - news and notes, compiled from staff reports, email reports, the web, and social media. Updates will be noted, so check back.
Thursday’s high school menu is fuller than anywhere else
As always, you can find more results and info here than anywhere else, scores and details, in the Scoreboard.
Perry and Mount de Sales have joined the Central Georgia contingent heading to Columbus for the championship round of the GHSA softball tournament. Scores are in the softball update, details in The Scoreboard, along with other games Thursday.
Re-visitables: the state h.s. football polls and a roundup on the Central Georgia teams. There is the list of predictions by the Maxwell Ratings. And The Sports Report’s weekly predictions – don’t get testy, we’re doing pretty good – are up.
Coming Friday morning, preview capsules on the top games of the week and the full schedule.
Go back and check out the prep stuff for the week, including an early look at Central Georgians among the state stat leaders and around the area in the Monday Morning Quarterback, the top 20 Central Georgia teams and their statewide ranking, as per the Maxwell ratings.
ESPN’s Gameday is at Washington State; so is Bleckley County’s Willie Taylor, doing work
And the two are likely to meet this weekend as the ESPN show makes its debut at Washington State, which has gone bonkers since finding out.
The name of Bleckley County grad Willie Taylor will come up throughout the visit of Rece, Lee, Kirby, and Company, because the lightly recruited multi-sport standout is making a name for himself far from home.
Check out this nice story on Taylor from Cougfan.com.
And this one from the Spokesman-Review.
Will Markakis, Suzuki be back with the Braves?
Nick Markakis and Kurt Suzuki are free agents, and they were key parts of the Braves’ quality season. To sign one or both, or not?
Energetic Crean must corral his own expectations
The new UGA men’s hoops boss is ready for the season, but needs some patience … from himself.
Banks hopes for immediate eligibility at Georgia Tech
Texas transfer James Banks is holding out hope he’ll be ruled eligible at Georgia Tech this basketball season.
Honor Roll
Mercer's Trevor Martineau is the Southern Conference men's soccer player of the week for the third time this year.
He helped the Bears to wins over USC Upstate and Wofford with an assist against Upstate and four points against Wofford.
He has a point in five straight matches, and is tied for first in the Southern Conference with 17 points. ...
Georgia College's women's soccer team is No. 7 in the NCAA Southeast Region poll, and fifth in the United Soccer Coaches Southeast Region poll. ...
GMC is first in the latest National Junior College Athletic Association Division I men's soccer rankings. The 10-1-1 Bulldogs jumped from fifth. ...
Football updates
Georgia
Georgia Tech
Falcons
Shurmur talks about the Falcons
They’re trying to tackle better
Ryan having another history-making season