MOULTRIE — The Colquitt County middle school golf team must replace three of its top players from 2005 — Clarke Hendrick, Anna Leigh Keith and A.J. Hood — all of whom are now playing on the Colquitt County High varsity teams.

And while coach Matt Key calls this a rebuilding year, this year’s middle school will not be bereft of talent.

John Fordham, an eighth-grader, is a veteran of the team that finished second in the South Georgia Athletic Conference tournament at Kinderlou Forest Golf Club in Valdosta last year.

Fordham, who is expected to play No. 1 this season, was the low medalist in the conference tournament, shooting a 72 as a seventh-grader and besting his eighth-grade teammates.

Billy Edwards, another eighth-grader, is the likely No. 2. Davis Edwards, a seventh-grader will likely play No. 3 with seventh-grader Payne Newsome at No. 4.

The rest of the 18-player roster includes eighth-graders Harden Mobley, Brant Dotson and Jaycee Eunice; seventh-graders Daniel Chafin, Seth Williams, David Brown and Whitt Newsome; and sixth-graders Lee Wright, Spencer Cokely, Preston Mobley, Jordan Williams, Von Stripling, Jenna Hagler and Jacob Hall.

Colquitt County will open on Monday at Stone Creek Golf Course in Valdosta and the following Monday will be at Spring Hill Country Club in Tifton.

The second Baby Packer Invitational will be held at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, March 21, at Sunset Country Club with Colquitt County, Coffee, Lowndes, Hahira and Tift County taking part.

Colquitt County won the inaugural Baby Packer last March. But the tournament was shortened to just nine holes by thunderstorms. Fordham shot a 34 in the tournament.

The 2006 middle school team also will play in the Baby Blue Devil Invitational at Spring Hill Country Club in Tifton on Monday, March 27, and will meet Lowndes at the Francis Lake Golf Club on Thursday, March 30.

The conference championship will be held at 1 p.m. on April 10, at Beaver Creek Golf Club in Douglas.

The middle-schoolers will complete their schedule on Thursday, April 10, at the Lowndes Middle School Booster Tournament to be held at Francis Lake.

With 13 sixth- and seventh-graders on the roster, “We should be pretty strong the next couple of years,” Key said.