Jeff Hart

DAWSONVILLE -- Dawson County may sparkle a little bit brighter thanks to the elbow grease of local citizens. Government and Community Affairs Representative Cathy Brooks said more citizens than ever participated in this spring's Great American Clean-Up.

NORFOLK, Va. -- A slew of world records, three gold medals, and two Best Lifter plaques. Yep, it was a pretty good day Friday at the American Powerlifting Committee (APC) National Championships in Norfolk, Va., for three Hall County weightlifters.

Three young people from our area have landed appointments to service academies and have been accepted by the institutions.

ATHENS -- The Georgia baseball team will try to advance to its third Collge World series in four years when in plays host N.C. State Sunday in the two teams' deciding Game 3 of a best-of-three Super Regional series at Foley Field.

LONG POND, PENNSYLVANIA -- NASCAR points leader Kyle Busch wrecked his car during practice Saturday at Pocono Raceway and had to go to a backup. Because he's switching to a backup car, the pole-winner must drop to the rear of the field at the start of Sunday's race.

John Cohen is coming home to Mississippi State to win a national championship. That was the message the former Bulldogs outfielder delivered to hundreds of fans who greeted him at news conferences in Starkville and Jackson on Saturday, a day after he resigned at Kentucky and took the job over the objection of former coach Ron Polk.

ATLANTA -- Jeff Francoeur gave himself a mixed grade Saturday on his season so far. He says he'll take his power numbers seven homers and 36 RBIs but would like to see some other statistics improve in the final 100 games of the season. Francoeur is hitting only .240 (18 for 75) with runners in scoring position, including only .133 (2 for 15) with the bases loaded.

BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA -- UC Irvine's red-hot pitching had little trouble icing LSU's big bats Saturday night in the opener of their super regional series.
When they added a bit of power to their offense and some chicanery to their defense it added up to an 11-5 victory.

CHICAGO -- Candice Dupree scored 20 points, Jia Perkins had 19 and the Chicago Sky cruised to a 91-70 victory over the winless Atlanta Dream on Saturday night.
Chasity Melvin had 12 points and seven rebounds, and Cathy Joens scored 10 points to help the Sky (3-4) set a franchise record for a margin of victory.

GLADEVILLE, TENNESSEE -- Brad Keselowski raced to his first Nationwide Series victory Saturday night, passing Clint Bowyer with six laps to go and easily holding off his closest rivals at Nashville Superspeedway.