Unlevel Playing Field — By Tommy Purser

The Final Four in the Class AA State Baseball Tournament has been set. And, not surprisingly, three of the four teams in the group are private schools — Mount Paran Christian School, Fellowship Christian School and North Cobb Christian School. Appling County is the only public school in the Final Four.

There is a distinctively unlevel playing field for small schools in the Georgia High School Association and it has created controversy across the state for well over a decade. The tilt in the playing field toward small private schools in Georgia is that private schools can recruit the best players for their teams over a wide area of Georgia while public schools are prohibited from recruiting.

The Georgia High School Association has made attempts to level the playing field but those attempts, obviously, have failed. Miserably. Class AA, the classification in which Jeff Davis High School plays, is packed with private schools and the Final Four reflects that.

Appling County, whom Jeff Davis defeated twice this season, comes into the semifinals ranked 5th with a 24-10 record. Their opponent this week, North Cobb Christian, is ranked 3rd with a 30-6 record. Mt. Paran is 30-4 and ranked No. 1 and Fellowship Christian is 29-4 and ranked No. 2. The road ahead is a tough one for the Pirates.

But I’ll be rooting for them.