What's Going On: Basketball hits stride; dive on in

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January 8, 2012

The Dalton Daily Citizen Sun Jan 08, 2012, 09:55 PM EST

This time of the year, there is a lot going on, but it seems to be a little bit of a lull in the world of high school sports here in Whitfield and Murray counties.

Sure, the high school basketball seasons are in the throes of the region and sub-region schedules with games that matter for post-season seeding, but the region tournaments are the true test for the hardwood.

Also, this past weekend saw the area wrestling dual championships, but none of the local teams are heading to Macon for the state tournament this week, and the traditional tournaments aren’t held until the first weekend of February.

Later this month, spring sports — baseball, track and field, golf, soccer and lacrosse (coming soon to Northwest Georgia to be sure) — can begin practice, but the real heart of high school sports are the playoffs.

Still, there will be plenty of local action on the hardwood to get over any post-holiday blues as the local teams jockey for position.

Already, Dalton’s boys and girls teams are off to a good start. Shaking off their losses to Northwest Whitfield last week, the Catamounts and Lady Cats rebounded with wins over Ridgeland on Friday and then took a crossover double dip against Murray County.

For the Cats, it was a big hurdle over a stumbling block for the last couple of seasons by getting the win over the Indians.

Tuesday will bring perhaps the biggest challenge of the year so far for the Dalton boys and coach Mike Duffie as Ringgold comes to town.

The Tigers are 14-1 on the year with their only loss of the season coming over the holidays against Class 5A Etowah of Cherokee County. That might not mean a lot to area basketball fans, but here is a score that will — 80-59 over Dade County earlier this year.

Area fans know that Dade County plays winning basketball and especially plays high-scoring basketball. The Tigers held the Wolverines to their lowest scoring output of the season.

Looking at the roster for the two teams, Ringgold and Dalton both feature a team filled with guards with one glaring exception — 6-foot-5-inch Tiger forward Adam Weldon.

How the Cats match up with him could be the difference in whether or not Dalton extends its winning streak to three in a row.

For the Lady Cats, things couldn’t look much rosier in Sub-region 7A-3A.

Dalton and Heritage are the only teams in the sub-region with winning records, while three teams have yet to register a win according to the sub-region standings on Ga.PrepCountry.Com.

While that will bode well in the sub-region race, it could hurt Dalton come the region tournament since the ‘B’ sub-region is much stronger with Allatoona, Cartersville, Pickens and Gilmer all with double-digit win totals.

The difference in talent for Region 7-3A is much like the one seen in Region 7-4A where the Northwest Lady Bruins stand at 1-3 in region play, but have lost to the clearly defined upper half of the region.

Northwest destroyed Sequoyah 54-29 last week, and yet the Lady Chiefs are 4-1 in the region having played the decidedly lower half of the region so far. Northwest even sits beneath Johns Creek in the region standings, and the Lady Gladiators lost to Sequoyah on Saturday by 10 points.

It’s all about who you have played at this point, and Northwest has merely seen more of the top tier than they have of the bottom of the barrel, so take heart Lady Bruins fans in that 1-3 is pretty deceiving at this point.

• Get in the water: I know it may seem weird after the temperatures we suffered through last week with that Arctic blast coming down from Canada, but the prep swimming scene is certainly about to heat up.

Dalton will host Etowah and Ooltewah, Tenn., on Wednesday at 6 p.m., while Northwest will race against Calhoun at Dalton High on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. It will be a good test for both schools after the break to see where they stand with Dalton set to host the Northwest Georgia Regional Meet on Jan. 20. Both Dalton and Northwest have had strong seasons and will be looking to qualify a host of local swimmers for the state meet later this year in Atlanta at The Westminster Schools.

Chris Whitfield is a sports writer for The Daily Citizen. Got something that should be in What’s Going On? Contact him at chriswhitfield@daltoncitizen.com.

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