EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the fifth in a 13-part series looking back on the local sports scene in 2009 which will culminate on New Year's Day with the top 10 stories of the year.

As the calendar turned from April to May the high school baseball, soccer and track and field seasons came to a head while the local prep football teams hit the field for spring practice and local golfers were in full swing during the most decorated month of the year.

With the team’s leading scorer, senior team captain Patricia-Anne Upson out with a broken foot, classmate Lauren Barlow scored a hat trick and assisted on another goal as the Spalding High girls soccer team defeated Flowery Branch 4-3 May 1 to reach the state semifinals for the fifth time in seven years.

The same day the Griffin High baseball team (12-11 overall, 11-5 region) ended the regular season defeating North Clayton 8-1 to finish fourth in Region 4-AAAA.

The Region 4-AAA champion Spalding High baseball team (19-4 overall) ended the regular season splitting a doubleheader May 2 at Troup County, beating the host team 8-2 in the opener and losing to East Coweta 6-2in the nightcap.

Spalding High sophomore Henry Mabbett Jr. fired a 3-under 69 May 4 to finish as Class AAA co-state champion in the boys state golf championship at Waynesboro Country Club in Waynesboro, Ga. Mabbett finished in a three-way tie for state runner-up as a freshman.

The same day, the Griffin Christian baseball team ended its season with a 9-3 loss to LaGrange. It was the fourth loss in a row for the Crusaders (9-10) which did not make the playoffs.

On May 5, the Spalding High girls tennis team defeated Westover 5-0 in a marathon match to reach the state semifinals for the first time in the school’s nine-year history. The match, which started at 1 p.m., in Albany, Ga., ended at 8 p.m., in Columbus.

Four games into the match a four-hour rain delay ensued. By GHSA by-law, teams that advance to the Final Four on May 8 in Clayton County have to be determined by May 5. So the coaches decided to move the suspended match -- which had already been delayed 24 hours because of rain on May 4 -- 83.5 miles away where rain was not falling at Columbus State College and University.

The same day, the Spalding High girls soccer team saw its season come to an end 4-0 at North Hall in Gainesville, Ga.

On May 6, Griffin Christian eighth-grader Carson Willis completed a round of 1-over 73 to win the GISA Class AA boys state golf championship by three strokes at Rocky Creek Country Club in Vidalia, Ga.

The same day, Spalding High’s Matt Turner signed a scholarship to play soccer at Gordon College.

On May 7, Spalding High senior Will Ficklen won the mile at the Class AAA state track and field meet with a time of 4:24.5 in Jefferson, Ga.

On May 8, the Spalding High girls tennis team bowed out of state tournament play with a 5-0 loss in the semifinals to defending state champ Riverwood.

The same day, Spalding High’s baseball team breezed through its opening-round Class AAA best-of-three series, downing visiting Liberty County 8-4 and 3-1, while the Griffin High baseball team lost 4-0 and 11-6 at Lakeside-Evans in its Class AAAA best-of-three opening-round series.

On May 9, the Griffin High boys track and field team placed in all four events it had participants in on the last day to place eighth overall with 24 ½ points. Buck Hancock placed fourth in the 100 and sixth in the 200, while Greg Worthy placed fifth in the 400 and the 4x-100 team of Hancock, Worthy, Denarius Appling and Aaron Mathis placed third.

Two days earlier, Worthy scored points with a fifth-place jump in the high jump and a seventh-place leap in the triple jump, while Cartavious Woods placed eighth in the shot.

On May 11, the Griffin High football team, coming off a trip to the 2008 Class AAAA state semifinals, opened spring practice with a load of senior starters back on both sides of the ball.

On May 13, the Spalding High baseball team’s season came to an end with a 8-6, 3-0 sweep at the hands of visiting Perry.

On May 15, the Griffin Christian football team concluded spring football practice. The same day, the Spalding High football team’s annual spring-practice-concluding Navy and Silver Spring Game ending in a 7-all.

On May 16, Spalding High sophomore Jenna Wesley placed seventh in the 800 and sixth in the 1600, while also competing on the school’s eighth-place 4x400 team with Dominique Nock, Stanariel Phinazee and Shay Wright at the Class AAA state track and field championships in Albany Ga.

On May 18, three golfers with local tries tried to qualify for the U.S. Open at The River Club in Suwanee, Ga. Spalding High sophomore Henry Mabbett Jr., who finished co-state champ in the Class AAA state boys state championship days earlier, was in the field as were former Griffin Country Club pro Brian Dixon, himself a former NCAA Division II national champ, and two-time Griffin Classic winner and former Georgia PGA Player of the Year Tim Weinhart.

However, none of the three made the cut, top eight plus two alternates, in the field of 126. Weinhart shot a 73to miss the cut by two, while Dixon shot an 81 to finish tied for 64th and Mabbett shot a 91 to finish tied for 104th.

On May 21, the Griffin High football team ended its annual spring-practice-concluding Green and Gold Game with the Green team winning 27-14 on a windy, rainy spring day at Volunteer Park.

On May 24, Henry Mabbett Jr., shot a 69 for a 1-under 141 total to erase a three-shot deficit and take medalist honors in the Boy’s Division at the Preseason Junior at Chateau Elan.

May 30, Max Gresham of Griffin made his NASCAR debut, finishing fifth in the South Boston 150 NASCAR Camping World East Series event in Virginia.