Published Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Good news about area athletes without injuries

Sports Column by STUART CROSBY

stuart@newnan.com

Is it my imagination or did it appear that almost every news story from last week was either negative or sad?

In the course of seven days, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Iowa high school football coach Ed Thomas and pitchman Billy Mays died while stories of the situation in Iran and the affair of SC governor Sanford seemed to fill in the spots.

Fortunately, all the news is not bad especially on the local front for a few of our area athletes and all I can say is their achievements came at the right time.

While it will not become official until the beginning of February, Newnan’s Alec Ogletree has decided he would like to be a Georgia Bulldog and spend his Saturdays in Sanford Stadium.

Along with his brother Zander they form a duo that I affectionately call “the Lads” and offensive ball carriers have not tried to go into the “O-zone” while these guys have been Cougars.

Alec Ogletree is considered by many scouting services to be the top prospect in the state of Georgia and this is definitely a coup for Mark Richt and Willie Martinez when one considers who else was looking for his services.

While the other “Lad” is deciding his future, we should enjoy watching these docile players during the football season and maybe basketball then we will know what Zander will do.

Next on our list of accolades is Jean Reynolds who had a pleasant visit to Hammond, Indiana over the weekend.

Reynolds shot a one-over-par 73 Sunday afternoon to win the Duramed FUTURES Tour’s Horseshoe Classic for her second tournament win on the season and other stuff that’s indicated in a separate story featured in this edition of The Times-Herald.

To say the hometown lady has had a great season is an understatement with seven top-10 finishes including the two wins and she has been in a battle all season for being the top money winner.

We look forward to having a story of her winning the open and eventually getting her card to play on the LPGA Tour down the road.

Meanwhile, several youth baseball teams are continuing to play in tournaments and one is the 14U Sharpsburg Angels who will be competing in the AABC Southeast Regional Tournament in Memphis, Tennessee this beginning next week.

Tonight, the Senoia 15-16 All-Stars will be playing in the championship round of Little League Baseball’s Fourth District Tournament at the Peachtree City Baseball and Softball Complex beginning at 6:00.

The round will be a best-of-three series and Senoia will face the All-Star team from the West Point Little League in Troup County who has won four straight district titles with a chance to play at the state tournament in Oconee County in two weeks.

Several other teams from Senoia and South Coweta are also playing for titles either tonight or Wednesday at the PTC complex so hopefully we will be able to ‘spread the love” all over the place during the week.

There is also tournament baseball being played at Andrew Bailey Park tonight in the nine and under division and the 13 and under division where AABC state titles are at stake.

There are several other teams competing in tournaments, but space doesn’t allow to mention all of the participants.

But the bottom line is the potential they hold for a column or a story of good news as opposed to the death of someone with prominence which is being dealt with on every news outlet.

And to think no one was hurt, maimed or killed during the writing of this column.