Colquitt basketball teams
to play 3 straight at home

Published 12:23 pm Saturday, January 25, 2025

MOULTRIE – The Colquitt County girls and boys basketball teams will have three home dates this coming week, playing host to Region 1-6A opponents Tift County on Tuesday, Lowndes on Friday and Camden County on Saturday.
The girls games will tip off at 6 p.m. on Tuesday and Friday and at 5 p.m. on Saturday.
The Lady Packers 13-5 overall and 2-4 in the region.
The Colquitt County boys are 13-3 overall and are in first place in the region with a 5-1 record.
The Packers only region loss came at Tift County on January 17.
Of this and that:
• Colquitt County’s Montana Tatum has committed to play flag football at Brewton-Parker College.
Tatum was an integral part of the Lady Packers’ first two flag teams, which went a combined 29-8-1.
She was named to the All-Area first team defense after last season.
Tatum also was a starting outfielder on the Colquitt County successful fast-pitch softball team.
• The GHSA bass fishing program’s first state qualifier scheduled for Saturday, January 25, was canceled because of the cold weather.
The first qualifier now will be held on February 8, at Lake Oconee in Buckhead.
The members of the Packer bass fishing team who will compete are Harrison Lampman, Banks Flowers, Andrew Stanford, Haydyn Glass, Kel Searcy, Carstin Searcy, CJ Bryant, Carl Brown, Brayden Bell, Walker Story, John Davis Summerlin and Hayden Hamm.
The other two qualifiers will be held on March 8, at Clarks Hill Lake in Appling, site of last year’s state championship, and on April 5, at West Point Lake in LaGrange.
The GHSA’s fifth state championship will be held on May 3, at Lake Lanier in Gainesville.
Colquitt County had a school-record seven teams qualify for the state championship last year, the most of any school that competed.
• Monday, January 27, will mark the first day of practice for Colquitt County’s girls and boys soccer and tennis teams and track, baseball, golf and gymnastics teams.
Colquitt County’s new slow-pitch softball team will hold its tryouts on Monday as well.
The Region 1-6A swim meet also is scheduled for Monday.
• Former Colquitt County assistant coach Chad Nighbert has been named the head football coach at Brookwood High School.
Nighbert served as Brookwood’s interim coach from the third game into the playoffs last season after head coach Phillip Jones took time away for health reasons.
Jones’s contract was not renewed.
The Broncos finished 7-4 overall and were second in Region 7-6A with a 6-1 record.
Under head coach Justin Rogers, Nighbert coached the Packers linebackers in 2019 and was the team’s co-defensive coordinator in 2020.
Jaheim Ward, a red-shirt senior defensive back at Eastern Kentucky, has been named to the All-United Athletic Conference second team.
He started 10 games and finished third on the team with 66 tackles, including five for losses and had two interceptions.
The Colonels finished 8-5 and were eliminated in the first round of the NCAA FCS playoffs.
Ward also was named to Eastern Kentucky’s Dean’s List and earned the President’s Award.
• Jaheim’s older brother Jay Ward just finished his second season as a member of the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings.
A fourth-round draft pick by the Vikings in the 2023 draft,
he has played in 33 games the last two seasons and has been credited with 14 tackles.
Carliss Johnson is averaging 12.9 points and four assists in games for the Albany Tech women’s basketball team.
• Former Colquitt County and Tuskegee University basketball player and longtime college coach Vanessa Taylor is in her first season as an assistant women’s coach at Lander University in Greenwood, S.C.
Taylor has been the head coach at Elizabeth City State, Johnson C. Smith and North Carolina Central and has won 331 games in her career.
Most recently she has been an assistant coach at Coastal Carolina and, the last two seasons, at Queens University in Charlotte, N.C.
She has been a women’s college basketball coach for 30 years.
Lander’s Bearcats are 8-5.