Area boys basketball players earn coaches’ all-state honors
Three players from Middle Georgia took player of the year honors on the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association boys basketball all-state teams.
Tye Fagan of Upson-Lee, Khavon Moore of Westside and Kameron Pauldo of Dublin topped the lists in their respective classifications. Fagan took honors in Class 4A South and Pauldo in Class 2A South, while Moore shared the honor in Class 3A South with Trevion Lamar of Jenkins.
Jaylan Sandifer of Northside and Zion Johnson of Houston County made the Class 6A South team.
The Class 5A South team included Jacolbey Owens and Nelson Phillips of Warner Robins and Josh Linder of Veterans.
Travon Walker of Upson-Lee, Rodney Walker of Baldwin and Cam Holden of Mary Persons joined Fagan on the Class 4A South team.
Peach County’s Jared Johnson, Westside’s Trey Foster and Central’s Antarius McCoy joined Moore on the Class 3A South team, while Aaron Ridley of Southwest, Darius Dunn of Northeast and Ashton Bonner of Monticello made the Class 2A South team with Pauldo.
Clarence Jackson of Class 1A public state champion Wilkinson County made the Class 1A North team, while John Corvin of Taylor County and Cory Smith of Hawkinsville made the Class 1A South team.
Signings update
A pair of Veterans athletes signed with colleges on Thursday.
Volleyball standout Ashley Hudson made it official with Reinhardt, while two-way football player Jaylen Lowder did the same with Fort Valley State.
Houston County’s Georgia Bostic signed with South Alabama to play women’s soccer.
Baldwin football player Kenneth Smith, a two-year starter on the offensive and defensive lines, will sign next week with Lake Erie College in Ohio.
Help Wanted/Help Found
With Stacy Nobles’ resignation, there are four football head coach positions unfilled in Middle Georgia as West Laurens joins Twiggs County, Lamar County and Central.
Northeast filled its vacancy last week with Twiggs County’s Ashley Harden.
Nobles said Wednesday he hopes that the school and board of education will promote defensive coordinator Kagan McClain, who joined the Raiders’ staff when Nobles took over.
“I’m hoping they’ll keep it on staff,” said Nobles, headed to Bleckley County as an assistant coach, among other duties. “My defensive coordinator’s been here with me six years, and he does a phenomenal job defensively and in that weight room.
“And he’s a man of God. He does things the right way. I’m hoping he gets to carry on the torch and keep the program here rolling in the right direction.”
McClain has coached at Americus-Sumter and Cairo.
West Laurens athletics director Jeff Clayton said Thursday that the plan is for a new head coach to be approved at a called board meeting at noon on Tuesday. West Laurens also has an opening in boys basketball with the recent resignation of Ed Ford after one season.
Ford led the Raiders to the 1981 Class 3A state title and reached the semifinals a year later. He also coached at Upson-Lee, coming out of retirement in 2003 for that position, as he did a year ago to return to the Raiders.
“I think he decided it was maybe more than what he was ready for at his tenure in life,” Clayton said.
The Raiders went 6-20 last season and 3-23 in 2015-16 under Danny Johnson. Clayton expects that position to be filled in April. Ford was assisted by Chuck Hill and Don Way.
Hill returned to West Laurens when Ford took over after serving as head coach at Toombs County, his alma mater where he was an all-state player in the early 2000s, for two seasons.
Jones County’s opening in girls basketball, created when Lance Pittman resigned earlier this month, didn’t last long. Athletics director Barry Veal said the school has hired ChoRhonda Gwaltney from Glynn Academy. Gwaltney played at UNC Greensboro from 1997-2001 and helped the program to its first NCAA Tournament appearance as a Division I program, earning three All-Southern Conference honors. She coached there and at Campbell.
Glynn Academy finished 16-12 last season, 6-2 in Region 2-6A. The Terrors lost 52-45 to Jonesboro in the first round of the state tournament. They were 22-5 in 2015-16 in Class 5A, losing to Warner Robins in the first round of the state tournament. She was 75-53, according to Maxpreps, in five seasons at Glynn Academy, finishing below .500 only in her first season.
“We’re thrilled to have her,” said Veal, who said Pittman’s resignation was based on time with family concerns.
Houston County stayed in-house, sort of, to fill its boys basketball opening, with assistant football coach Don Hudson taking over for Stephen Walls, who resigned in January, effective at the end of last season.
Hudson, who also coaches track, is in his second year with the Bears. He has 18 years of basketball head coaching experience, ranging from middle school to varsity. He was boys basketball head coach at Clarke Central for six years. Hudson wasn’t part of the Bears basketball staff last season.
Baldwin is in the market for a girls basketball head coach with the move of Randall Owens to Bleckley County for a football assistant’s position.
This story was originally published March 23, 2017 at 6:59 PM with the headline "Area boys basketball players earn coaches’ all-state honors."