By Ryan Black
Staff Writer

    The Morgan County Lady Bulldogs have bounced back in a big way against teams in the Region 8AAA-South sub-region.
    Since a loss to Oconee County on January 22 dropped them to 1-2 in the sub-region, the Lady Bulldogs have ripped off four straight wins against their fellow 8AAA-South opponents.
    In the two games they played last week in sub-region competition, they went 2-0, with both wins on the road.
    Last Tuesday, the Lady Bulldogs traveled to Archer and came away with a 53-25 victory over the Lady Tigers.
    On Friday, Morgan went to Covington and beat the Lady Eagles of Eastside 63-55.
    Their four-game win streak was snapped Saturday night in Eatonton, as they were defeated by the Putnam County Lady War Eagles 61-43 in a non-region tilt.
    The Lady War Eagles jumped on the Lady Bulldogs from the get-go, opening up the game with back-to-back three-pointers courtesy of Falinjia Butler and Brandi Riley to put Morgan down 6-0. The Lady Bulldogs rallied to cut it to 8-4,  but Putnam ended the quarter on a 9-2 run to take a 17-6 lead into the second quarter.
It only got worse for the Lady Bulldogs in the second quarter, as they were out-scored 19-13 and faced a 36-19 deficit at halftime.
The Lady Bulldogs never gave up, but they were unable to whittle the Lady War Eagles' lead below 13 points in the second half, eventually falling 61-43.
Tweety Hawkins led the team in scoring with 17, followed by Averianna "A" Dennis and Sade Weaver, who had 7 each.
The Lady Bulldogs played their final sub-region game of the regular season Tuesday in Watkinsville against the Oconee County Lady Warriors. Results of the game were unavailable at presstime.

By Ryan Black
Staff Writer

    To be called the “champions” at the end of each season is every team’s goal, regardless of the sport.
    Friday night at Youth Middle School, the Morgan County Middle School Bullpups earned that distinction after a 50-31 victory over the Carson Tigers of Greene County in the Piedmont Athletic Conference championship game.
    Head coach Milfred Franklin was overcome with emotion after the win.
    “I am extremely proud of the guys,” he said with the championship trophy clutched in his hands. “They worked tremendously hard throughout the season, and the main thing is, they stuck to the gameplan and they didn’t lose their composure. I’m just so proud; I can’t even explain it with words.”
    Other than Carson scoring the opening basket of the game, Morgan led the entire night. The Bullpups held the Tigers to only four points the rest of the quarter, while scoring 14 of their own to take a 14-6 lead into the second quarter.
    The Tigers rallied in the second quarter, making both three-pointers they attempted and out-scoring the Bullpups 14-8 to cut Morgan’s lead to 22-20 going into the second half.
    Morgan shot the ball well from “inside the arc” in the first half, making 50 percent (8 of 16) two-point field goals they attempted.
    Tez Mathis opened the third quarter with a three-pointer to extend the lead to 25-20, and it only continued to grow from there. Near the end of the third quarter, and already down, the Tigers began to come unglued mentally.
    The Tigers were whistled for both a flagrant foul and a technical foul with 52.9 seconds remaining in the quarter after they committed a hard foul against Morgan County.

By Ryan Black
Staff Writer

    After their 30-26 overtime victory over the Putnam County Lady War Eagles Saturday in Eatonton, Morgan County JV Lady Bulldogs head coach Josh Reeves said that "good teams have to find a way to win." Then, being rather modest, he continued by saying, "I'm not saying we're a good team, but we found a way to win."
    His team is doing better than good this season, though: they finished with a perfect 11–0 record.
    While Morgan was only down 12-10 at halftime Saturday, their hopes of staying undefeated looked rather bleak after they were out-scored 8-2 in the third quarter, taking a 20-12 deficit into the final quarter.
    The Lady Bulldogs stiffened their defense in the fourth, while also picking it up offensively. In the quarter, the Lady Bulldogs won the scoring battle 11-3 over the Lady War Eagles.
    With only 7.5 seconds remaining in regulation, the Lady Bulldogs found themselves down by only one point, 23-22, and Brionna Murray at the line for two free throws.
    She missed the first, but thankfully for the Lady Bulldogs, converted the second to send the game into overtime.
    Murray scored the first points in overtime, hitting a jumper to give Morgan a 25-23 lead.
    Over the next minute, Putnam went to the line four times, making two of them to square the game again at 25-25.
    Latoyia Williams stepped up for Morgan, hitting a jump shot to put the Lady Bulldogs back on top 27-25 with just over a minute remaining in the overtime period.

By Ryan Black
Staff Writer

    The Morgan County JV Bulldogs are finishing their season with a flourish.
    The Bulldogs went 4-0 in their games last week, all on the road, including picking up two victories in one day on Saturday, one of those being against AAAA school Griffin in a tournament Saturday morning in Alcovy.
    Later on Saturday in Eatonton, the Bulldogs picked up another victory, beating the Putnam County War Eagles 44-36.
    The War Eagles opened up the scoring to take a 2-0 lead early on, but after a jump-shot by Quentin Smith gave the Bulldogs a 4-3 advantage, Morgan took a lead they would hold on to for the rest of the game.
    They held leads of 13-5 at the end of the first quarter, 22-13 at halftime, and 31-23 at the end of the third quarter.
    The closest the War Eagles would get to re-taking the lead was when they cut they cut the Bulldogs' advantage to 29-23 with just under a minute remaining in the third quarter.
In the fourth quarter, Morgan's lead fluctuated between 8 to 12 points before the Bulldogs finished out the game with a 44-36 win.
    The Bulldogs had balanced scoring in the game, with ten different players scoring, and none scoring more than seven.
    K'Darius Dennis was the leader with 7 points, followed by Tevin Lowe and Smith, who each scored 6 points.
    After having an undefeated week, head coach Jonathan Nelson couldn't really find any faults to point out about his team. "We probably could have played a little better, but they played hard the entire week," he said. "That just goes to show you, (if you) play hard, rebound the ball and play good defense, you always have a chance at winning."

Staff Reports

    The Morgan County High School Mat Dogs completely dominated the Redskin Rumble last weekend at Social Circle High School.
    The Mat Dogs, wrestling at full strength, took first place with 240 points. Alcovy finished a distant second with 168.5 followed by Mountain View with 165.5, Social Circle with 151 and Newton County with 123.
    “It was a great day to be a Bulldog,” said Head Coach John Robbins.
    Ten Morgan County wrestlers made it to the finals and 12 of 14 wrestlers medaled in the tournament. Six Morgan County wrestlers were crowned champions, four finished second, one finished fifth and one finished sixth.
    Individually James Bearden (103) took first place with a technical fall in the finals. At 112 J.R. Wert took first with a 19–3 technical fall in the finals. On the season Wert remains a perfect 15–0 with eight falls.
    At 119 pound Jacob Akins won the championship match 4–2. Akins has recorded 54 wins this season, with 35 pins and eight losses.
    Carter Shultz won the 130 pound weight class. Shultz pinned the number one seed in the tournament in the semi–final match and defeated the number two seed 9–7 in the finals.
    Nick Simmson won the 145 pound weight class. Simmons currently has a 44–20 record with 20 pins.
    Heavy weight Stiara Mathis was also crowned champion, winning 9–1 in the finals. Mathis currently has a 47–16 record with 35 falls.