Following a clean sweep in the region championship rounds Saturday, fans of Statesboro basketball will get a double dose of playoff basketball next weekend with both the boys and girls sporting top seeds.
    The SHS boys team captured their 15th region title under head coach Lee Hill and their first in the 5-A classification. A 62-51 defeat of New Hampstead sealed the deal Saturday night, their third win over the Phoenix the season. Including the tournament, the Devils were 9-1 against their new region, with the only loss being a 60-57 upset by Wayne County on Jan. 20.
    “We don’t get to where we are today if we don’t have everyone contribute,” Hill said, “We are very fortunate to be in the place we are today.”
    Even after the rocky start to the season where Statesboro was plagued by a plethora of injuries to key players, Hill knew this would eventually be the end result. Statesboro returned three seniors off a 22-9 team with plenty of juniors to back them up. Those three key seniors  — Marcus Kirkland, Cam Harvey and Jordan Wright — would be the leaders this season to help catch the region crown.
    As freshman the trio was apart of a region championship team, but as seniors they’ve come around to make their own mark. Now, they have a shot to make a deep playoff run off what’s been a nice streak of winning for Statesboro. Since they gained all of their healthy players back on Dec. 26, the Blue Devils are 15-2 with their only losses coming by a combined 12 points.
    “I thought those times we were down and injured made us a better team,” Hill said. “We’ve had a lot of guys become better because of it.”
    In the region title game the boys were led by Harvey who scored 25!points while adding eight rebounds. Tyler Goodman chipped in 13 points while Jordan Wright added nine points and nine boards.
    Statesboro (18-9, 7-1) will host the No. 4 seeded Jones County High School out of Gray, Ga. Jones (13-14, 9-7) is coming off a 65-47 loss in the consolation round of their tournament to Union Grove.

Lady Devils upset Ware for title
    For the Statesboro ladies they were hoping the third time would be the charm against Ware County — and luckily the third time was for all the marbles.
    A 33-27 win wrapped up Statesboro’s run as the region tournament, cementing them as a No. 1 seed for their quadrant of the state tournament bracket. Even after losing to Ware by 20 points in their first meeting and by nine points in their second, head coach Jeff Seier always thought his girls had a chance.
    “We didn’t feel like the scores indicated how competitive those games were,” Seier said. “Both of them got away from us near the end.”
    One would have thought Statesboro caught a break when Wayne County got popped for playing an illegal player in their final regular season game against Ware County — bumping them into the two seed and giving Statesboro a more favorable matchup.
    Even after beating Wayne 48-39 in the opening round, the odds seemed daunting against Statesboro to even have a chance against a Ware team who had dominated them all season. However it was an underdog attitude in the end that helped propel Statesboro to victory.
    “Our girls were never satisfied with just being in the state tournament,” Seier said. “They came into tonight with a great attitude and it showed through on defense.”
    The ladies got a team high 18 points from Lacy Robins in the championship game. Ware cut the game to three with under a minute left to play, then Victoria Harris caught a key offensive rebound off a missed free throw for a putback to seal the game for good.
    Even while they’ll host this coming Friday, the Statesboro ladies (18-8, 5-3) are not in for an easy matchup. Locust Grove (17-11, 9-7) from Locust Grove, Ga. will come to town as a strong No. 4 seed from region 4-5A, fresh off a 43-26 loss to Woodland in their consolation game.