**“Like” is nice, but sharing and/or retweeting are better. Lets more people know where they can get Central Georgia’s best sports coverage.**

In Coverage: GHSA warns students and schools about NIL

📰S📰C📰O📰R📰E📰B📰O📰A📰R📰D

Pro

⚾ ⚾ ⚾MLB ⚾ ⚾ ⚾

Atlanta 6, St. Louis 2; St. Louis 4, Atlanta 1

📰C📰O📰V📰E📰R📰A📰G📰E📰

Signing

East Laurens grad Zaylen Boson has signed to play football at Manchester University in Indiana.

Around/About Central Georgia

Former Jones County softball coach Lyons dies

Blake Lyons, who spent more than a dozen years at Jones County and led the softball team to a state championship, lost a battle with cancer in Tennessee.

Lyons died Tuesday morning, according to a Facebook post by his daughter Rachel.

**The Lyons Family: Vikki, Blake, Rachel, Mitchel**
*Photo: Blake Lyons’ Facebook page*

Lyons was diagnosed last fall with stage 4 colon cancer. He posted an update on Facebook on June 18 noting that the cancer was rapidly spreading and he was in hospice care.

“The chemo is not working and the doctor has given me 2 months tops on this earth. There are no alternatives available as my energy level is at about 20%. … I haven’t given up but will need a miracle at this point. … This (is) not good bye but til we meet again.”

A 14-team tournament fund-raiser last December in Gray, co-organized by former Greyhound standout Bree Comer, raised more than $13,000 for Lyons and medical expenses, despite Lyons having resigned from Jones County in 2019.

“It just says so much about Jones County, that even though we’re not living here anymore, they support us in every way that they can through thoughts, prayers and everything,” his wife Vikki told the Jones County News. “It’s overwhelming that people care so much.”

He moved to Tennessee, and coached at Northwest High in Clarksville, hired in February of 2022. In his second season, 2023 (it’s a spring season), he led the team to its first regional tournament trip in about 30 years.

Lyons teamed with Clarksville High for a cancer awareness softball game during that first season.

He appeared last April at the cancer awareness game with Northwest and Clarksville, after having resigned to battle the cancer.

At Jones County, Lyons coached softball, baseball, and golf, among other sports, and was in athletics administration as well.

He passed the 500-win mark in October of 2019, en route to 518 career wins, the Greyhounds going 26-13 in his final season.

Longtime assistant Tripp Burt was promoted to head coach, and the Greyhounds won the GHSA 5A state title in his first season, 2020, 10 years after Lyons and Jones County won the 4A championship.

Before Jones County, the Ohio native also coached at Eagle’s Landing and Stockbridge.

GHSA hires Macon sportscaster as new media person

The summer of transition at the Georgia High School Association office in Thomaston continues with the addition of Marvin James of WMAZ-TV in a media relations role.

The GHSA has yet to change the staff directory on the website, which will include adding new executive director Tim Scott and deleting retiring director Robin Hines, mostly likely on July 1.

James was listed in the “areas of responsibility” section of the website, as “media and publications” as well as heading up tennis, earlier this month.

First reported on June 18 by the AJC and posted on June 19 by the GHSA on its website – by apparently cutting and pasting the AJC’s story – it was not publicly acknowledged by James until a Wednesday story in the Macon Telegraph.

Steve Figueroa is retiring after more than two decades in the role of director of media relations.

James is a graduate of Warner Robins and Georgia Southern who has been WMAZ’s sports director for nearly two decades.

Figueroa started at the GHSA in 2001 after working at newspapers in Lawrenceville, Marietta, and Atlanta for nearly 30 years. His duties included the GHSA newsletter, and the association’s Constitution and By-Laws, as well as serving as the secretary for executive committee and board of trustee meetings, taking minutes and details and publishing the information of those meetings.

Scott officially takes over on July 1.

Around/About Georgia

Hawks select Zaccharie Risacher with No. 1 pick

French teen only the 2nd No. 1 overall pick in franchise history

Scouting report 1 on Risacher

Scouting report 2 on Risacher

Scouting report 3 on Risacher

Liberatore pitches Cardinals to win over Braves and doubleheader split

What will Cousins' immediate impact be when the season starts?

Dream leaning on veteran Tina Charles to help fill scoring void left by Rhyne Howard’s injury

Basketball/NBA

France’s night early, 21 collegians picked