Starr's Mill coach Brent Moseley hopes the third time won't be a charm for rival Northgate.
The two schools meet Saturday for the Class AAAA baseball championship after playing twice in the regular season. Northgate won both games.
"We know a lot about them, and they know a lot about us," Moseley said. "They beat us twice this year, but hopefully we learned some things that we can use to turn around our luck against them."
The schools are located 14 miles apart on the southwest side of Atlanta and are both members of Region 5-AAAA. Starr's Mill is making the school's first appearance in the state finals, while Northgate was runner-up to Columbus in 2004. Their best-of-three series begins at 1 p.m. at Northgate.
"We beat Starr's Mill [7-0] the last time we played, but they had some guys out or hurt and they weren't really at full strength," Northgate coach Greg Hamilton said. "Now they've got everybody healthy, and I'm sure they want some payback."
Some quick hits on other state finalists:
» Wesleyan: The Gwinnett County private school plays for a state championship for the third time in four years. Wesleyan won Class AA last year and will meet Landmark Christian at 5 p.m. Friday in the Class A series.
» Pope: The Class AAAAA Cobb County school makes its debut in the championship series. The Greyhounds are led by outfielder Ryan Ussery, who has posted a .450 batting average in the playoffs and hit three homers against Brookwood.
» Lovett: Senior Clayton McKenney (committed to Georgia) and junior Jonathan Carkhuff form one of the state's top 1-2 pitching tandems.
» Cartersville: Donavan Tate, son of former Georgia tailback Lars Tate, is considered one of the state's top prospects for next month's baseball draft.
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