By Donald Heath

Special for the Effingham Herald

Last week was time to break out your winter jacket and definitely not the time to be riding on a school bus heading to an athletic event.

With temperatures plunging into the low 20s and expected precipitation including snow in the Augusta area, Effingham County had its boys and girls' basketball games with Greenbrier on Friday (Jan. 10) postponed until Wednesday.

It leaves the Rebels with three games in four days during the upcoming week, but boys coach Tramaine Aaron says the unusual cluster of games won’t be a distraction despite cutting down on practice and physical recovery time.

“It’s a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity,” Aaron said. “This is what a potential region (tournament) run could look like.”

Snow and icy road conditions led to the closing of Augusta-area schools on Friday.

The Rebels now will travel to Evans for a game on Jan. 14, play Greenbrier in Springfield the next night and will have one day off before hosting Lakeside on Friday.

It’s not the first time ECHS has faced a grueling stretch of games this season. The Rebels played six games in nine days from Dec. 13 to Dec. 21 and met with .500 success, going 3-3, but played one of its worst games of the season on the final day while falling to Savannah Christian 44-25 in a holiday tournament.

ECHS also played on back-to-back nights against Pope and Walton in Marietta – winning the first game and losing the second – on Jan. 3-4.

“Our message (to the players) is you’ve done this before so you should know how to prepare yourself,” Aaron said. “Our practices will be a little more controlled and we’ll get more guys minutes in the games to keep guys fresh.”

It will be a key stretch in the season for the Rebels (6-9, 0-1 subregion play after dropping their last three games.

Aaron said losses to Lakeside (61-40) on Jan. 7 and Statesboro (61-34) on Jan. 11 had more in common than the winning teams’ final point total.

“This team likes to see what happens at the start of games before they start to play,” Aaron said. “In both games, we fell behind before climbing out of holes a bit in the third quarters but it wasn’t enough. We had foul trouble and teams put us away in the fourth quarter.”

ECHS is in a subregion with just three other teams (Evans, Lakeside and Greenbrier) and will play each team three times during the regular season so it still controls its own destiny.

Lady Rebels drop two games

Effingham County’s girls fell to 1-11 and have lost 10 games in a row after a 50-27 setback at Lakeside on Jan. 7 and a 53-45 loss at Statesboro High on Jan. 11.

The girls will be playing their first home game in more than a month when they meet Greenbrier on Wednesday (Jan. 15) at 4:30 p.m.