Atlanta Public Schools’ Warriors basketball team earned second place and a silver medal during the recent Special Olympics’ State Indoor Winter Games in Marietta. With only seven players on the roster, the Warriors didn’t have much time to rest, and yet they made it to the final round.
In that final game, against a team from DeKalb County, APS trailed by only two points for most of the game, and ended up short, 26-22. “It was very exciting!” said Regina Gennaro, APS’ liaison for the Special Olympics out of the Program for Exceptional Children. “This was only our second year participating in a state event where we finished very quickly last year. We made a huge improvement this year!”
The APS team consists of North Atlanta High students Kirby Broughton, Carrie Crayton (the team’s only female), Travis Greene, Robert Perdue, Jermaine Russell and Aquinas Tolan, and Joe Woodward from The New Schools at Carver. (Another North Atlanta student, Mike Hightower, missed the game due to an injury.) Coaches are North Atlanta’s Lisa Oglesby and Nic Hill.
Some interesting notes from the tournament, after the jump …