St. Pius' Standard Records 100th Career Victory

The past week in sports at St. Pius featured a coaching milestone as head football coach Paul Standard recorded his 100th career victory as his team continues to sit in the No. 5 spot in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution/Georgia High School Football Daily AAA poll. Volleyball has occupied the No. 3 spot in the AAA poll by scoreatl.com for most of the season while boys’ cross country remains in the top spot in the ga.milesplit.com AAA poll and No. 6 in its all-classification poll. The girls’ cross country team, which was idle this week, kept its grip on the No. 2 spot in the ga.milesplit.com poll.

The Golden Lion football squad began Region 6-AAA play with a 48-6 win over Towers. St. Pius (4-1, 1-0) was led by the passing of Jack Spear, as the quarterback was 5-of-8 for 105 yards with two touchdowns. Ryan Braswell, Joey Connors, Nick Glass, Branden Mitchell and Brian O’Reilly also found pay dirt for the Golden Lions. Kevin O’Toole led a defense that recorded seven tackles for loss with 10 stops on the night. Matt Pearson also intercepted a pass as Standard became only the second coach to record triple-digit wins in school history behind the legendary George B. Maloof. Standard, a St. Pius alumnus, played for Maloof and is 100-35 in his 11-plus years at the helm of the Golden Lions. St. Pius will meet McNair this Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Avondale Stadium.

Volleyball continued its undefeated run in Area 5 play with wins over Decatur and North Hall. The Golden Lions (32-13-1, 6-0) hosted Marist in the fourth annual “Claws for a Cause” match and took the victory over the War Eagles, 25-19, 25-20, 25-22. In addition to the win, $4,000 was raised for the Save-A-Limb Foundation. St. Pius will travel to Blessed Trinity on Tuesday night with the top seed for the area tournament on the line as the Titans and Golden Lions have identical 6-0 marks against area competition. St. Pius will also meet perennial AAA power, Woodward on Tuesday as well. On Thursday, the Golden Lions will host Lakeside and Whitewater before travelling to Harrison for a play-date on Saturday to wrap-up the regular season.

Boys’ cross country finished ninth at the Race of Champions at the Great American Cross Country Festival in Raleigh, N.C. The harriers were led by Austin Sprague who placed 10th and Calvin Terrell who finished 52nd against some of the top cross country programs in the nation. The Golden Lions will be back in action this weekend at the Atlanta Classic at Clinton Farms. The girls’ cross country team, idle this past weekend, will travel to the Furman Invitational in South Carolina on Saturday.

Softball completed its regular season, dropping its three games last week. The Golden Lions (10-18, 3-3) opened region tournament play on Saturday with a 15-0 victory over Towers. St. Pius will travel to top seed Blessed Trinity on Tuesday for the semi-finals of the region tourney. The state playoffs are slated to begin next week.