Wednesday's Central Georgia Daily News 'n Notes: Prep polls, UGA hoops, Braves win, college baseball, college polls, and more

Tuesday's Central Georgia - and of interest to Central Georgia - news and notes, compiled from staff reports, email reports, the web, and social media.

Polls, polls, polls, we got 'em

          Polls? We got polls, prep baseball and soccer polls, particularly good news for Tattnall, Putnam County, and Veterans. Area rankings and links to full polls. In This Week's Coverage.

More rankings? Yessir, Class A baseball

          Tattnall remains atop the Class A private rankings, and GMC is the lone top-10 public team. In This Week's Coverage.

Georgia men's hoops gets an assistant, not named Jonas

          Tom Crean's first hire is Chad Dollar, a familiar name who is familiar with the state.

          Dollar comes from South Florida, where he assisted former Georgia Tech head coach Brian Gregory, with whom he worked in Atlanta from 2011-16.

          Dollar has also coached with Bruce Pearl and Gregg Marshall, and has coached at Georgia Southern.

Braves sweep the Nationals (yes, you read that right)

          Mike Foltynewicz was the sharper pitcher, and Max Scherzer wasn't in Atlanta's 7-1 win over Washington.

          Story lead and links in This Week's Coverage

College Baseball: Mercer keeps on rolling in Georgia, thumps Southern

          Mercer more than doubled up Georgia Southern in hits and almost quadrupled the Eagles in an 11-3 road win.

          Mercer improved to 25-6 overall and 7-0 against Georgia teams. The Bears swept the Eagled for the first time since 1999.

          Tattnall alum Blake Simmons went 1-for-3 for GSU.

College Softball: Mercer can't mount comeback at Georgia State

          Mercer got down early and struggled a bit defensively in losing 14-8 at Georgia State.

          Three Panther runs were unearned, thanks to three Mercer errors. The Bears also stranded six runners.

This Week's Honor Roll

          Mercer senior Jackson Ware is the Southern Conference baseball player of the week after batting .526 last week, with 9 RBI.

This Week's Poll watch

          Georgia College is up to No. 4 in Perfect Game's Division II baseball poll, while Columbus State is 13th.

          The Bobcats are 13th and Cougars 10th in Collegiate Baseball's latest poll, and Georgia College 15th in the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association poll.

          Mercer is getting votes in the NCBWA and ESPN/USA Today list.

          Middle Georgia State's baseball team is at 18th in Perfect Game's NAIA poll, behind No. 5 Georgia Gwinnett, and 17th in the NAIA coaches' poll.