Cross Countty Off and running

The Gryphon cross country team traveled to Roanoke Rapids on Monday and came home winners. The girls took part in a run against Roanoke Rapid girls only and won 17-39. Freshman Kaitlyn Jacob won the race for the Gryphon Ladies.

The boys ran against not only RR but Southern Nash boys ran as well and the Gryphon boys teams came home first winning by a score of 29 for the Gryphons, 46 for Southern Nash and the home team Roanoke Rapids had 52. Gryphon sophomore Mason Holt finished second for the Gryphons.

Those of you ECU Pirate football fans, the Pirates held a scrimmage on Saturday as they prepare for the 2010 football season. Former Gryphon Jacobi Jenkins who will play this season as a redshirt sophomore intercepted a pass and returned it 31 yards.

Jenkins was on the offense last season where he caught a couple of passes and now seems destined for the defense. I think that tells you what a good athlete he is when each side of the ball wants him.

I had heard a rumor all summer that Tashawn Mabry was not going to Rhode Island to play basketball as planned but I had an opportunity to talk with his mother last week during a Volley Ball match at Rocky Mount. TaShawn has just return from Rhode Island where he attended the second semester of summer school there and is scheduled to leave this week to enter fall classes.

We will get an opportunity to see many of his games on TV as Rhode Island plays on the ESPN group of networks at least ten times this season.

Saturday night I looked at the Dallas-San Diego game on the NFL Network game tracker. Terrell Hudgin of Rocky Mount did not catch a pass in this game. Yesterday I was on the Dallas website and if you remember last week I said that Dallas had nine wide receivers on their roster and on their depth chart they listed only five. Yesterday former Carolina wide receiver Jessie Holley was listed as the third string backup giving three players at both sides of wide receiver. High priced rookie Dez Bryant which you would think would make him the Cowboy seventh receiver was not listed on the three deep chart.

Dallas still list 79 players on their roster and they must be down to 53 by September 7th. Seven players can be listed as taxi squad which means they run the plays of the other team during practice. the NFL is a numbers game and with two pre season games left the numbers don't seem to be adding up for Terrell.

Game two of the high school football season is Friday night which is the home opener for the Gryphons as they will host Northern Durham. One area of improvement needed this week is the defense getting off the field faster. The first half against Bertie the Falcons ran 33 plays to 17 for the Gryphons despite Rocky Mount leading 13-0. The second half the defense got off the field quickly causing five fumbles. The defense threw a shutout on the Falcons but the offense gave up a touchdown.