Butler boys win first state basketball championship in 59 years

MACON, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - In an hour and 41 minutes of play, the Bulldogs never lost their lead, bringing home the first state championship to Butler in almost 60 years.

Butler High School’s boys’ basketball team defeated Union County for the GHSA 2A State Championship 57 to 49 in Macon.

It gave Chaz Clark his first state title as a head coach, but he wouldn’t be here without the ones before him.

While Butler stayed on top, there was one moment that made you hold your breath one minute into the fourth quarter.

The Panthers made it a one-point game, but it was the closest Union County would ever get.

This win marks Butler’s first trip back to the state title game since losing to Westside in 2022.

Butler Basketball has one state championship in GHSA play, which was back in 1966.

A win for Chaz Clark, a win for the seniors that have stayed by him, but bigger than that, a win for South Augusta.

“It’s going to take some time for them to sit back and get a little older, get a little wiser and realize what they have done, not only for a school but for a community, a community that desperately, desperately needed something like this,” said Clark. “For the other kids in the community, we have something to believe in, and they don’t realize the impact they’re having right now on the younger people in the community that choose to go the right way instead of going the wrong way because of what Butler High School varsity boys basketball team did. So they won’t understand that. It’s going to take some time, and I expect in a few years to get them calls, and then they’ll tell me, ‘Coach, we really get it, and we really understand what we have done.’”

For the fourth straight year, the AA title is staying in Augusta.

Also on Thursday, the Denmark-Olar boys’ basketball team won the SCHSL Class A State Championship.

Denmark brought home the win by defeating Abbeville 58-52 at a match in Florence, S.C.

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