As the prep basketball regular season is swiftly coming to a close, those who coach and follow high school sports lapse into clichés this time of the year.
“Every game matters more and more.”
“It’s not so much how many you win as much as when you win them.”
“We want to be playing our best basketball when it matters most.”
“This team is really starting to gel and playing with confidence.”
“It’s do-or-die time.”
Now, we all know that nothing is do or die until you are facing elimination and starting the end of your season straight in the eyes (sports writers aren’t immune), but there is definitely more of a sense of urgency for teams with just two more weekends of regular-season action remaining.
Tuesday night will be a big one for two of the area’s best boys basketball teams as Dalton hits the road to take on Ridgeland in a game that will go a long way in clearing up the foggy Region 7B-3A sub-region, while North Murray’s boys head to that place you can’t get to — Dade County — in a showdown in Sub-region 7B-2A.
The Mountaineers of North Murray have just one sub-region loss this year, and that came on their home floor against Dade County back in September. The Wolverines haven’t loss in sub-region play this year and haven’t lost any games since falling in a holiday tournament in Alabama before the calendar flipped. Dade County’s 90-89 win over the Mountaineers was their closest victory of the season.
Dade has been a typical Dade team, busting the clock twice this season and scoring 80 or more points in every game except three. North Murray has been equally hot since the holidays, and the Mountaineers enter with the same 14-5 record as the Wolverines. The key will be defense, despite the possibility of scoring records collapsing when these two meet up for Act Two.
Both teams are almost assured of making the region tournament, but it is so much better to be the sub-region champion than it is to be the runner-up. The top three teams in each subregion advance to the region tournament with the sub-region champions earning a bye to the region semifinals and automatically earning a spot in the state playoffs.
North Murray was the No. 3 seed from the sub-region last year and fell in the first round of the region tournament. The Mountaineers will be looking to atone for that missed opportunity this year, and a win over Dade County would go a long way in getting to that destination.
For the Catamounts, Sub-region 7A-3A has become a huddled mass of teams with Dalton and LaFayette both sitting with one sub-region loss after LaFayette lost to Ridgeland last week and then Dalton lost at LaFayette. Dalton beat Ridgeland by a bucket at home on Jan. 6, but the Panthers hadn’t lost since then before falling by 20 points to Ringgold on Friday. Ringgold and Ridgeland each now have two sub-region losses. The Cats play at Ringgold on Friday in a place that it extremely difficult to get a win and will finish the regular season at home against LaFayette on Feb. 7.
• Football players needed: Last year, a football game featuring alumni from Dalton and Northwest brought out the area’s men to relive a little of their youth on the gridiron as Northwest beat the Catamounts at Bruins Stadium.
This year, event organizers are looking to expand and have invited Murray County, Southeast and Christian Heritage alumni into the fray. We’ve been informed by Gridiron Alumni that Murray County already has enough players to field a team, but as of yet they don’t have anyone to play. For more information on the event and for other announcements for the area, see the Local Sports Calendar on page 2B.
• College wrestlers return: The Northwest Georgia Trade and Convention Center will serve as host again for the National Collegiate Wrestling Association’s national duals starting on Friday.
The event will feature more than 20 university wrestling teams from across the nation, including Notre Dame, Maryland, Penn State, Georgia Southern and Middle Tennessee State.
Tickets are available at the Dalton Convention and Visitors Bureau at 305 South Depot St. For more information, call the Trade Center at (706)-272-7676 or visit www.ncwa.net.
Chris Whitfield is a sports writer for The Daily Citizen. Got something that needs to be in What’s Going On? Contact him at chriswhitfield@daltoncitizen.com.
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