Tony Kirkland

MOULTRIE — The baseball field at South Effingham High School will be named in honor of former Mustangs baseball coach Tony Kirkland.

The ceremony will be held at noon on February 3.

After serving as an assistant coach on Colquitt County baseball teams that won state championships in 1997 and 2003, Kirkland took his first head coaching job at South Effingham in 2004.

The program had never won a region title before he arrived, but the Mustangs won the title each of six seasons he coached there.

During his tenure, the Mustangs were 138-52 and 56-10 in region games.

In four of his six seasons, his teams reached the state’s final four. All six Mustang teams won at least 21 games. The 2005 team went 26-6.

Kirkland returned to Colquitt County head coach in 2010 and led the Packers to 163 wins before retiring after the 2019 season with a career record of 301-187.

He was inducted into the Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Fame in 2018 while he was still an active coach.

He and Greg Tillery currently operate the Fundamental Factory in Moultrie.

Of this and that:

• Two former Colquitt County football players entered the NCAA transfer portal and will be playing at different schools next fall.

Offensive lineman Kamaar Bell, who played the last three seasons at Florida Atlantic, has transferred to South Carolina of the SEC.

Bell started his collegiate career at Auburn before transferring before the 2021 season to Florida Atlantic, where he immediately became a fixture on the offensive line.

He started all 12 games at guard for the Owls last season and nine in 2022.

He will become one of the more experienced interior offensive linemen for the Gamecocks.

Eastern Kentucky has added cornerback Jaheim Ward, who played the last three seasons at Austin Peay.

The 6-foot-2, 183-pound Ward played in 24 games for the Governors, with 14 solo and 25 assisted tackles.

Ward was named to the Austin Peay Athletics Director’s Honor Roll in the fall of 2021 and in both the spring and fall of 2022.

• Carliss Johnson has played in 16 games with 12 starts as a freshman at St. Petersburg College.

The former Lady Packers basketball player is averaging 11.4 points for the Titans, who are off to a 3-13 start.

• Maggie Bishop, a sophomore on the Piedmont University swimming team, took a second-place finish in the 500-yard freestyle event in a recent meet featuring Piedmont, Warren Wilson and Columbia College.

She also was on the 200-yard freestyle relay team that finished second and was on the 200-yard medley relay team that was fourth.

• Cavin Hall shot a 76-72—148 to finish in a tie for second place in the 14-15 boys age group in Southern Junior Golf Tour’s recent St. Simons Island Junior at Sea Palms held Jan. 13-14.

Brother Michael Hall was one shot back at 149 and tied for fifth.

Davis Hall, the youngest of the three Hall brothers, shot 80-84 for a 164, good for a tie for fifth in the boys 12-13 age group.

• Vanessa Taylor is in her second season as an assistant women’s basketball coach at Queens University in Charlotte, N.C.

The outstanding former Colquitt County player, Taylor joined Royals after spending five years at Coastal Carolina University as the Chanticleers’ associate head women’s basketball coach.

She also was the head women’s basketball coach at North Carolina Central University from 2012 to 2017, at Johnson C. Smith from 2001 to 2012, and at Elizabeth City State University from 1994 to 2001.

She has accumulated 331 wins as a head coach.

Taylor holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Tuskegee University.