Lake Oconee Academy athletics recently won its second-consecutive Directors Cup, presented by the Georgia Athletic Directors Association. The school also won another Female Directors Cup.
Each classification in the Georgia High School Association annually names the best male athletic program, the best female program, and the top overall athletic program.
These honors are based purely on achievement in the GHSA playoffs. The farther a team progresses through its postseason, the more points it earns, and for the last two years, Lake Oconee Academy’s athletics has won the best female program and best overall athletic program.
LOA Athletic Director Chris Ingle is proud of the hard work and dedication his athletes put in.
“I am honored to work with our coaches and players each and every day. I know that each school in the state is proud of their coaches, and this is deservedly so,” Ingle said. “Coaches pour so much of their lives into teaching and developing their student-athletes. “I am just a little biased when I say that I think that our coaches are the best around. We could never achieve this award without them.”
During the 2023-24 school year, LOA athletics won eight region championships and two state titles. The state championship teams were in girls’ tennis and girls’ golf, and the LOA girls’ soccer team was also the state runner-up.
The Greensboro-based school had a much more balanced year in 2023-24, with many teams winning playoff games, including LOA baseball, which made its first semifinal appearance.
Ingle credited the school’s success in such a short amount of time to former CEO Dr. Otho Tucker.
“To think that we have come from a school coaching staff of less than five when Dr. Tucker first started the high school to the level that we are now is truly unbelievable to me,” Ingle said. “I was recently looking back at some archives, and LOA did not win its first playoff game until the fall of 2018.”
Since that time, Lake Oconee Academy athletics has secured 31 combined GHSA region and area championships, 10 runners-up, and 15 state titles.
Ingle widely shared the credit for the school’s success.
“Our student-athletes, coaches, teachers, administrators, and parents have everything to do with these results. Very few of these championships were won on pure athleticism,” Ingle said. “They were won on thousands of hours of hard work, incredible support from the LOA Foundation, and all involved excellent coaching and an academic program that always comes first. “We are truly ‘One Titan’ in everything we do in athletics, and we strive to get better every year.”