While basketball, wrestling and swimming are in the stretch drive of their seasons, most spring prep sports are just getting warmed up. Tennis opened practice on Jan. 9, while baseball, soccer, tennis and track-and-field all began practice this week around northeast Georgia and the state.
Golf is the final sport to get going and will tee off with first practices on Feb. 13.
With the success of a slew of area teams in 2016 across all sports, AccessWDUN decided to get an early look at what could be in store for fans in 2017.
In soccer in 2016, two boys teams, Johnson in Class AAAA and East Hall in Class AAA, played for state titles. Both the Buford girls and boys teams advanced to the semifinals in Class AAAA.
In baseball in 2016, Buford played for the Class AAAA title before falling to Locust Grove. Gainesville in Class AAAAA and Jackson County in Class AAA, both made the semifinals in their respective classifications.
In tennis in 2016, in Class AAAA the Buford girls and North Hall boys both made the semifinals.
With limited practice time and typically cold temperatures this time of year, every minute of every day counts as teams try to improve skills and set rosters.
East Hall boys soccer coach Chris Horton, who guided the Vikings to their first-ever state championship game appearance, said they use the opening week to lay the groundwork for the season.
“We do some drills and just try to get everyone in back in shape,” he said. “We do some player evaluations as well. It’s normally about a two-week process on looking at everyone before we decide to make cuts.”
The Vikings lost most of their offensive firepower from last year’s group that went 21-2 in 2016, including a tough 3-2 loss to Decatur in the finals. Horton said they will be a work-in-progress in the early going.
“It’s probably too early to measure where we are, but we lost a lot and we have some work to do to get the level of last year,” he said.
The Vikings open the season against Johnson on Feb. 7 in a match between two state finalists from last year.
“We thought that would be a great to start the season for both programs and get some excitement going early. Hopefully both teams will be ready,” Horton said.
Gainesville baseball, meanwhile, will look to continue a run of three straight seasons of advancing to at least the Final Four, including a championship series appearance in 2015. But the Red Elephants graduated four starters and their top two pitchers from last season and coach Jeremy Kemp said the opening week of practice is spent getting swings back in shape, fielding drills, and loosening up the arms.
“It takes some time for everyone to get in baseball shape. It takes the pros about a month and for us the first week is very important,” Kemp said. “We’ve had some great weather, which has helped us, but we’ll need every day we have before the season starts.”
Gainesville opens its regular season at home on Feb. 22 against Forsyth Central. Kemp would not give any hints as to his early pitching rotation but said they will begin to make roster decisions by the end of this week.
“We try to give everyone a good week or so, and if we have kids from wrestling or basketball come out later we’ll give them the same time frame,” he said. “We have an idea of sorts but we’re looking at everybody that comes out.”
On the hardcourt, the North Hall boys tennis team manufactured an historic run in 2015, making a semifinal appearance in Class AAAA. Coach Bob Woodworth said they use the opening weeks as open competition. He also added that North Hall will be replace five starters on both the boys and girls teams in 2017.
“We’re in our second week and we’ve spent the time competing for spots,” Woodworth said. “It’s been especially important this year because we lost a lot on both teams. I’m really interested in what we have on the girls side. We have a lot of young talent on that group.”
Most tennis teams use the time for endurance and quickness drills and working out the kinks of their strokes.
“The good weather I think will help everyone in that it will be more like the end of the season,” Woodworth said.
Woodworth expects that most teams will set their lineups toward the end of this month as teams can open their seasons as early as Jan. 30.
In other words, the early spring weather will give way to a real spring feel very soon.
