In baseball there’s a period in late July, early August called the “dog days”.
    Balls and bats have been making contact for what seems like forever in the blazing heat during the dog days. While the heat doesn’t reach unbearable levels in Bulloch County in January, it certainly seems like basketballs have been bouncing for a while this prep season.
    The season is about to hit its two month point, and by now the contenders and pretenders have been separated. By now most teams know where they stand in their respective regions and are focusing on what seed they’ll fall into come tournament time in less than three weeks.
    For Bulloch County, the Statesboro teams both look like playoff teams who could host while Southeast Bulloch will probably struggle to grab a fourth seed. Bulloch Academy is too early in region play to tell if the Gators can contend while Portal will know how their playoff fates look when the initial power ratings come out today.
    For more, here’s how each team fared this past week:
    • Statesboro Lady Blue Devils (11-6, 2-1, 1-1 last week): The Statesboro ladies four-game winning streak came to a screeching halt Saturday when they were upended by 18-0 Ware County 51-31.
    Even with the loss Statesboro still sits in second place with Wayne County (11-3, 2-1), who they’ll face Friday on the road to break that deadlock.
    The ladies will travel to New Hampstead (0-3, 3-16) tonight before finally coming home to play Swainsboro (10-5, 6-2) Saturday. So long as Statesboro keeps getting good guard play from Lacy Robins (12.5 ppg last week), the team should keep humming at their regular pace.
    Statesboro Blue Devils (10-8, 3-0, 2-0 last week): Two close calls as they may have been, but eight points were the difference between a 1-2 start and a 3-0 start in region play for Statesboro this past week.
    Cameron Harvey’s layup with ten seconds left on the clock against Ware County capped the dramatics for the week as the Blue Devils are now tied for first place with New Hampstead (14-4, 3-0) in region 2-5A.
    The two sides will face off in Savannah tonight to see will take sole control of first place, then Statesboro travels to Wayne County (7-11, 1-2) Friday to end their four game road trip before hosting Swainsboro Saturday (10-6, 8-0).
    • Portal Panthers (9-7, 5-3, 1-2 this week): After riding high most of the season, Jeff Brannen’s young team took a tumble this week after a tough weekend against Woodville-Tompkins and Bryan County.
    After beating the Grizzlies and Redskins by a combined 31 points in the first two games of their season, Portal fell to both this weekend by a combined 28 points. Even after beating Calvary Day in overtime last week, it wasn’t enough to make up for those two losses.
    Portal will know where they stand in the power ratings today, and this week they can improve their position with games at Screven (6-8, 2-4) Tuesday, at Claxton (7-10, 3-5) Friday and home against Metter (10-7, 4-4) Saturday.
    • Bulloch Academy Lady Gators (10-9, 0-1, 1-2 this week): Unlike their male counterparts, the BA girls didn’t get off to the start they’d like in region with a 44-30 loss to Pinewood.
    MiKay Sands turned in a consistent week averaging 17 points per game, however it didn’t help the rest of her running mates are all underclassmen and each scored less than ten points per game this week.
    Their region schedule doesn’t get any easier this week, with Edmund Burke (5-7, 0-2) tonight and Frederica (11-1, 0-1) on the road Friday.
    • Bulloch Academy Gators (6-10, 1-0, 2-1 this week): As tough as they early season has been for BA, they did get off on the right foot in region play with a 72-63 win over Pinewood Friday.
    More importantly, BA appears to have a real weapon on offense emerging in the form of SEB transfer Dra Harrison. Harrison averaged 21.7 points per game over the last week and could prove to be key in the Gators repeating as region champs.
    BA will look to solidify their place in region with two more in-region contests this week against Edmund Burke (5-7, 1-1) tonight and Frederica (8-3, 1-0) on the road Friday.
    • Southeast Bulloch Lady Yellow Jackets (4-9, 1-5, 0-1 last week): Despite a 61-43 loss in their only game of the week to Jenkins, SEB still got one of their best statistical performances of the year in the form of Aaliyah Sandifer.
    Sandifer has been a consistent performer for Kristin Barnhill’s team this year, but Friday was her magnum opus. 24 points and 17 rebounds were Sandifer’s final stat line, the highest double-double by anyone in Bulloch County outside BA’s MiKay Sands.
    SEB gets back-to-back home games this week with Islands (3-16, 0-8) tonight and Johnson (15-1, 7-0) Friday.
    • Southeast Bulloch Yellow Jackets (4-12, 1-6, 0-1 last week): SEB had their week shortened by a wet gymnasium in Groves High School, leaving them to only play one game against powerhouse Jenkins High School.
    Aside from an 11 point game from Aaron Houston, there wasn’t much to take from their 74-39 loss other than Jenkins is a very good team. However even at 1-6, SEB is still only two games out of fourth place in their region with eight games to go.
    SEB will face two more region opponents this week — both at home. Islands (13-5, 8-0) comes to town tonight then Johnson (11-7, 6-2) visits Friday.
    • Portal Lady Panthers (3-13, 2-10, 0-3 this week): No one had a tougher week than the Portal ladies this week, having to face three elite eight caliber teams in a row with two of those games on the road.
    Calvary Day, Woodville-Tompkins and Bryan County are a combined 40-9, and all three are the top teams in their respective regions. Needless to say, the ladies could use a break this week.
    Luckily that may be the case as Screven County and Claxton are 3-28 combined, though Metter (11-6, 4-4) will take things back up a notch Saturday.