Northern Swept Bt Eastern Wayne.

Eastern Wayne wins the Eastern 3-A Finals tonight in Red Oak 11 to 1 over the Knights of Northern Nash. In the process they avoided maybe the best left handed pitcher in North Carolina high school or college in TylerJoyner.

It is just the way the schedule dictated the pitching as Joyner having pitch seven innings Wednesday night just to get the Knight to the eastern Finals finished his high school career at first base and got one of the two hits in the game for Northern.

Northern's number two pitcher in Brandon Denton pitched 6 plus innings last night but was not involved in the pitching decision in the 6-5 lost to Eastern Wayne in Goldsboro.

Faced with an elimination game coach Eddie Loesner called on David Whitman to pitch and heading into the fourth inning I don't think any one could have asked for more from Whitman. He was down 2-1 but Northern was in the game until a five run rally in the fourth by the Warriors knocked Whitman out. He was replaced byJeremy Lucas who got six straight batter out and worked until the seventh inning.

The lone Northern run came in the second inning when Brandon Denton reached first on a throwing error advance around to third and a squeeze bunt by Mike Williams which rolled past the pitcher and Williams beat it out for an infield single.

On the night Eastern Wayne collected seven hits but were issued eight free passes five of them intentional walks and two hit batters.

Northern finishes 19-9 on the season .

I heard tonight from Don Johnson that John Haggerty of Northern Nash was behind the plate umpiring today in the LSU-Southern NCAA playoff game that was televised on ESPNU. I saw a few innings of that game but did not realize John was behind the plate.

I saw on the crawler on the bottom of the TV screen that the Denver Broncos have waived J J Arrington. J J had just signed with Denver since the Super bowl. He must have an injury. It's curious getting cut even before summer camp starts.

Congratulations to Brian Goodwin of the Rocky Mount Gryphons being named the Gatorade North Carolina High School Player of the year.

The day of June ninth is a big day for Brian. That is the day of the Major league baseball draft. Whether he plays for Mike fox next year or plays minor league baseball Will be determined by high up in the draft he is taken. There is still a good chance he will be drafted in the first round. I would suspect if he is the money will be enough to start pro ball right away but if he is second round or more he will probably wear the Carolina blue for a while.

It will be interesting to see when Tyler Joyner is drafted.