Hawks Cruise in Baseball Playoffs

had little trouble advancing to the second round of the Georgia High School Association AAAAA baseball playoffs Friday, sweeping a home doubleheader against Westlake, 15-5 and 14-0.

The Region 4-AAAAA champion Hawks will open a best-of-three series at home Wednesday at 5 p.m. against Tift County. If the teams split the Wednesday games, they'll meet again Thursday for a decisive third game.

The news Friday was not so good for Hillgrove's girls soccer team, whose bid for a berth in the AAAAA state Final Four fell short with a 3-2 loss at Mill Creek in the quarterfinals.

Hillgrove did come away from the state track and field meet in Jefferson with a championship, though not a team title. Jabari Hunt-Days won the AAAAA shot put championship with a throw of 53 feet, 3 inches.

Hunt-Days earned all 10 of the Hawks' points at the meet, placing the team in a tie for 17th.

did a little better, scoring 12.5 points to finish 14th.

Most of those points came from the Indians' second-place run in the 4x100-meter relay. The team's time of 41.98 seconds was less than 0.2 seconds behind winner Newton.

Over the course of the meet, six McEachern runners took turns filling the four relay spots: Victor Brannan, Amba Etta-tawo, Xavier Jackson, Jalani Wells, Rajon Wright and Cameron Gamble.

Brannan also gained McEachern that half-point by finishing in a tie for eighth in the high jump with a leap of 6 feet, 2 inches.

Distance runner Nick Washizaki accounted for the rest of the Indian points, finishing eighth in 1,600 meters at 4:27.22 and sixth in the 3,200 meters at 9:43.14.