LFO starts out 2-0 in Region 6-AAA play
LFO’S Will Carroll belted two homers and drove in all five runs for the Warriors last Monday, but it would not be enough to get them past county rival Heritage, who picked up a 9- 5 victory in Fort Oglethorpe in a non-region game.
The Warriors’ first run came on an Rbi-single by Nyko Simpson in the bottom of the first, answering a three-run first inning by the Generals. Carroll launched a two-out solo homer to center in the third to make it a 7-2 game.
The score would remain 7-2 for the next three innings when Heritage added two final runs in the top of the inning. However, LFO would make things interesting in its final at-bat.
Eli Walker led off with a double and Simpson singled by Carroll blasted his second homer of the game. However, that would turn out to the be the final tally of the night.
Simpson also had two hits for LFO, while Josh Mcafee had a
and compete and we don’t just take football players. Karson doesn’t play football and Perea runs cross-country and track. The atmosphere in our weight room is fun. Everybody’s competing against each other.
“We have most of our athletes in weight training now and its helped our teams in a lot of sports to have better records. We’re getting more and more athletes in weight training and it has really changed our whole athletic department.”
In Class A, Jared Lowe (161-170) was state runner-up for Gordon Lee after a bench press of 275 and a power
clean of 225.
“I’ve worked really hard in weight training trying to get stronger, so it was really exciting to get the chance to compete against other people,” said Lowe, who competed at state for the first time. Getting second made me feel good.”
Gordon Lee began competing at weightlifting meets last year and was all set to participate in the state competition when COVD-19 wiped out the event, along with everything else in the spring.
“This year we were actually able to go to the state meet and experience what that was about and the kids had a great time,” said Gordon Lee football coach Josh Groce. “It was a lot of camaraderie and it was a great team experience.”
The Trojans also had a third-place finisher in Blake Groce (141-150), who put up 240 on the bench and 240 in the power clean. Placing fourth for Gordon Lee was Logan Ball (226-245) with a 250 bench and a 240 power clean. Justin Cruise (191-205) was fifth for Gordon Lee (255 bench, 260 power clean), while finishing in sixth place were Hunter Stephens (161-170; 200, 245) and Gabe Lowe (246-above; 245, 225).
“As far as benefits for the football program and any other sports, you need to have kids working out and we’re hoping that this is something that will push other kids to want to be a part of, too,” Groce added. “It was a very good experience, but also a learning experience, so now we’ll know more going into next year of how to handle it all.”