All-Stars converge on Tattnall Square

The Middle Georgia All-Star Weekend will get started Saturday, and for the first time, it will be played at Tattnall Square. The weekend will feature 80 of the best Middle Georgia basketball players who are either juniors or seniors

The weekend will start Saturday with the East/West girls game starting at 5 p.m. That will be followed by a 3-point contest contest and a slam dunk contest, and following that the East/West boys game will take place. The weekend runs into Sunday with the MacTown/WarTown battle, which features the best players from Warner Robins against the best players from Macon. Sunday also features a 5 p.m. start.

“I am always excited about the All-Star Weekend, but to have it at a facility like Tattnall Square just adds that much more to it,” organizer Johnny Dixon said. “This is the 13th year we have held this, and we feel like we have been able to bring in the top players from Middle Georgia to play in this game. We are also very excited to be incorporating some of the best private school players into this game.”

The West girls squad has some familiar names on the roster, including Central standout Jada Clowers, who will be teamed up with Warner Robins players Shynia Jackson and Victoria Brown, while the East squad will have a little more continuity to it. Baldwin head coach Randall Owens will benefit from having Akirah Robinson and Courtney Battle, both Baldwin players, on the roster.

The West boys have an exciting roster, led by high scoring Antarius McCoy from Central, Trey Foster from Westside and Calvin Slaughter from Tattnall Square and will also have Dartavious Thompson from CFCA. The West will have its work cut out for it playing against an East team that has the advantage of having a head coach, Dennis Woolfolk of Jones County, who has three of his players: Dennis Woolfolk Jr., Nick Singleton and Wade Garrian on his roster.

The Sunday games could be even more heated as the Warner Robins and Macon battles have a little more of a rivalry feel. In the three years they have played these games, Macon has is yet to win on the girls or boys side.

“We know that a Macon team has never won, and we really want to be the first ones to get a win,” said Aaron Ridley, who starred at Southwest this year and will be one of the leaders for the Macon team. “We have had some great practices, and this is more than just a fun game for us. We definitely want to win.”

The Macon team is talented but will have the disadvantage of having eight teams represented, while the Warner Robins team will have four players, Nelson Phillips, Jacolbey Owens, Champ Dawson and Jaydon Norman who played together the entire year with the Demons.

The Macon girls roster has such standouts as Central’s explosive duo of Tyleia Williams and JeNya Wilder, as well as FPD’s Kate Patterson, but the Warner Robins team is loaded with three Demons players — Kezia Holmes, Courtney Walker and La’Terria Mathis — as well as two Northside players in Tamia Sapp and Kayilah Little.

This story was originally published March 17, 2017 at 2:27 PM with the headline "All-Stars converge on Tattnall Square."