Counting down Southwest Georgia’s Top 10 sports stories of 2014; No. 3: Area high schools finish as state runner-up

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Herald’s sports staff has chosen Southwest Georgia’s Top 10 sports stories from 2014. Today marks the sixth of the 10 we’ve picked as having a significant influence as we count down to No. 1, which will appear in the Jan. 1 addition. Look for No. 4 in Monday’s Herald.

ALBANY – Losing in the state championship game is heart-breaking. And for most teams, it takes a while to recover.

But looking back on the achievement as time passes, it’s not a bad thing to finish as the state runner-up.

For a handful of Southwest Georgia high school teams, they finished as the state runner-up. They still got a trophy and a banner to commemorate their season was raised in their gymnasium.

The Mitchell County girls basketball team, the Monroe girls track & field team and the Crisp County baseball team came up just shy of hoisting the state championship trophy.

Monroe fell behind Marist in the Class AAAA team competition at Hugh Mills Stadium and could never catch the Lady War Eagles.

They may not have finished as state champions as a team but a second-place finished never felt better, especially after the Lady Tornadoes’ 4×400 relay team of Kandice Clyde, Nikeria Marshall, DeAndrea Anderson and Jahari Williams narrowly beat Redan in the event to finish second.

Williams surged past Marist’s Zuri Davis, then battled Redan’s Zindzy Jones in what was one of the more exciting finishes in any event.

“I felt the batons hitting each other,” said Williams, who also won state titles in the 100 (11.94) and 200 (24.32) and the long jump.

“I knew what we needed, and I really wanted to win first in the 4×4. I just had to push myself harder.”

Monroe track coach Billy Glanton said with the adversity his team faced late in the season, the runner-up finish was satisfying.

“I thought I’d never be happy to finish second in anything,” he told the Herald. “But considering what these girls have gone through this season and then to be able to pull together and finish second in the state, we are very pleased.”

While Monroe was thrilled with its finish, Mitchell County’s girls basketball team didn’t have those same feelings after falling in the state championship game.

Playing Randolph-Clay for the fourth time during the 2013-14 season, Mitchell County dug itself into an early deficit at the Macon Coliseum and never recovered in front of a state-wide television audience on Georgia Public Broadcasting.

It was a devastating loss for a Mitchell County team that was looking for the first girls basketball state championship in school history. It was a loss that stung not only for the team’s four seniors, but also for the hundreds that made the trip from Camilla to watch the Lady Eagles lose to rival Randolph-Clay for the fourth time this season.

“Hurt. That was all we felt. We were hurt,” said A’Miracle Jones, who led the Lady Eagles with 12 points. “It was a special season because we made history, but we didn’t want it to end like this.”

The Lady Eagles only lost seven games all season — but four of them were to Randolph-Clay. The first three losses to Randolph-Clay were close, including an overtime nail-biter in the Region 1-A championship game.

The loss ended Mitchell County’s season at 25-7 and snapped an inspiring postseason run by the No. 7 seed Lady Eagles.

“We are still champions in my eyes,” Shonbreka Holton said. “We weren’t victorious, but we are still champions.”

For Crisp County’s baseball team, it was a bitter pill to swallow in Carrollton on Memorial Day. The Cougars, who had split the first two games of the series, lost the deciding third game 2-0 and missed their chance of winning their first state baseball title since 1961.

What was even tougher was the Cougars had the tying run on base when Devin Taylor ripped a pitch into the deepest part of Carrollton’s Cole Field. And with Chris McGinnis standing on second base, the Cougars sought to tie the game in the top of the seventh inning.

Instead, Carrollton outfielder Andrew Turner drifted back and hauled in Taylor’s shot, sending Carrollton to its first state baseball championship since 1962.

“The ball carried well here,” Taylor said of Carrollton’s Cole Field. “I figured it would have went out, but oh well, it didn’t.”