TEVERRIUS “POODY” JONES MUSCLES PAST A DEVIL He was a leading scorer in the Tigers game against Lincoln County. The Washington-Wilkes Tiger boys basketball team has one game to go in the regular season but it doesn’t matter in the region standings – that’s already been decided. Unfortunately, the Tigers couldn’t have ended up in a worse spot and they prepare to enter the region playoffs.

After this Friday’s season finale against Jefferson County, W-W will get ready to play the No. 1 team in the state at their place – Wilkinson County. The Warriors are undefeated for 2009-10 at 24-0 overall and 6-0 in their region. They actually scored 113 points in a recent win over AAAAA Northside of Warner Robbins. So it’s not going to be easy for the Tigers.

“It’s been a frustrating and crazy year,” W-W Head Coach Don Keiser said after learning that his team would get the fourth spot in Region 4A-A. “If we had just beaten either Lincoln or Warren one more time, we would have been in second place,” he said, “and if we had just beaten Athens Academy, we would still have been in third.” The Tigers split with Lincoln and Warren (1-1 each) this year and lost by only two points to Athens Academy. The way the records fell left W-W in fourth by the slightest of margins.

The game against Wilkinson will begin at 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 17.

As the regular season draws to a close, Keiser expressed his thanks to the gate workers, concession stand workers, faculty, staff, administration, and the custodial and maintenance staffs “that helped so much at our home games this year.”

In the most recently completed games, the Tigers lost a frustrating game to Aquinas 47-72 after four starters got in trouble with three fouls in the first half and the fifth had two fouls. Three of them ended up fouling out in the second half after spending a fair amount of time on the bench.

The Tigers actually led after the first quarter and were down by only nine at halftime. But the starters’ limited action was too much to overcome in the second half and the Irish pulled away for the win. Keiser praised Eric Scott for his defense against Aquinas’ star player.

W-W closed out the week’s activity with a couple of satisfying wins, the first over the GMC Bulldogs. In that game Matson Keiser and Neko Jones led the charge with 15 points each and Poody Jones just missed double figures with nine points. The Tigers won the game 54-47.

And finally, the Tigers came back from a loss earlier in the season to beat Lincoln County 66-44 in the last region game of 2010.

“I got my revenge and it felt good,” Keiser said, emphasizing that “it was the best team effort we’ve had all year.”

Akeimos Coleman and Poody Jones topped the Tigers’ scoring efforts with 19 points apiece. Keiser followed with nine points and he and Scott had eight assists each in the contest.

“We played like a total team with no none looking out for just themselves,” Keiser said. “We just kept feeding it inside to the big man.”

The Tigers now stand at 11-11 for the regular season with only the Jefferson game to go.