By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

          With a full season to rack up numbers, the Georgia Athletic Directors Association resumed its annual all-sports standings, and 10 Central Georgia schools placed in the top 10 in their classification in at least one of the three categories: overall, girls, and boys.

          Class A was changed, the group handing out separate trophies for public and private, which somewhat dilutes the big picture from year’s past.

          The GADA uses 26 sports in the standings, and counts each school’s eight highest scoring sports based on postseason success. So if a school didn’t make the postseason, it scored no points and wasn’t listed.

          This was the first year that Class A regions were separated into public or private for the entire year, not just the postseason.

          West Laurens, Perry, Mary Persons, Bleckley County, East Laurens, ACE, GMC, Dublin, Stratford, and FPD all had a top-10 finish in at least one category.

          West Laurens in 4A and Bleckley County in AA were the lone area programs to finish in the top 10 in all three categories under the old equation.

          With Class A split, ACE in Public and Stratford and FPD in Private are in the top 10 in all three categories. Stratford and FPD on given years had top 10 finishes in assorted categories with all Class A programs lumped together.

          Mary Persons in 3A made the top 10 in two of three categories.

          Of the programs in Class AA through 6A, West Laurens had the most points in Central Georgia with 935, followed by Bleckley County with 829, Perry with 759, Perry with 171, and Houston County with 609.

          Class A is excluded from that ranking because of the dilution of region competition with the complete separation of private and public. That led to many small regions, and thus an easier path to the postseason and at times an easier path in the postseason.