First Draft 2013 High School Realignment

 There is an Old saying that "You can not have progress without change".  The state of North Carolina is growing and there are areas in North Carolina that have growth and others that are losing citizens to those areas that are growing.

There is a committee within the NCHSAA that has the task of realigning  the conferences into their proper classification and by doing that find a solution on keeping like schools in the same conference.  This week that committee has released it's first draft of the 2013/2014 realignment.

If what the committee recomends  holds true then the conference called the Big East will stay the same but will add a new member.  That school would be Corinth-Holder in Johnson County near Wendell

  The Big East would have seven teams and Corinth-Holder would not have a natural rival like everyone else in the conference has.  Bunn who was thought to be a possible 3-A school will stay 2-A at least for another four years.  There was a worry that Hertford County would be forced to join the Big East but in the first draft new proposal  they will stay in the Northeastern 2-A and play as a 2-A school starting in 2013 as will the other 3-A school in that league Currituck.

The Coastal which has been 3-A will become a 4-A league and Clayton will join them with New Bern.  Washington will join  the League with SouthWest Edgecombe and play 2-A.

More surprising as anything is the fact that Tarboro High will drop to 1-A under this draft and join what is now the Tar-Roanoke.  Tarboro's enrollment is somewhere around 600 students these days.

If you are like me and had no idea where Corinth-Holder is, it is in Johnston  County but close to Wendell.  Rocky Mount which would be the furthermost travel would take about 40 minutes to get to Corinth-Holder.  All in all this is not a bad situation at all for the conference and is a lot better than some of the other possible alignments that could have happened.

Every school and conference will get a chance to look over the plan and at some point in the future there will be an appeal day where those who don't like the setup can go before the draft committee and state their case why they are in the wrong alignment.  Anything on the drawing board now would not go into effect until  the appeals are over and  the 2013/2014 school year would be first year  to be used.  I am sure there are changes coming but from what I see no one in our area should have any gripes.

Gryphon Boys Edge Girls 82-81

Tuesday night the Rocky Mount High School basketball teams played in front of the home folks and the home crowd did not go home disappointed.  The Gryphon boys remained undefeated posting a 82-70 win over the Bruins of Beddingfield while the girls laid a hurting on the normally good Lady Bruins but not tonight as the Lady Gryphons crush Beddingfield 81-27.

I believe Terrell Hilliard had his career high scoring 30 points to lead the way but Beddingfield was not willing to submit to the Gryphon press and run game  and the Gryphons could never quite get a comfortable margin and keep it there.  Twice Rocky Mount lead by 15 and 16 points but both time Beddingfield cut it under ten points until the final 12 point spread.  Beddingfield out rebounded the Gryphons 42-32 and that was worse in the second half 28-15.  The turnovers were close at 18 for RM and 15 for the Bruins.

K J peoples had a 12 point 12 rebound night.  Levon Brutus had a stretch in the second quarter in which he completely dominated the game.  He finished with 17 points.  Tevin Taylor hit three timely bombs for three pointers and finished with 11 points.

Corey Taylor lead the Bruins with 15.  He was followed by Travis Barnes with 14, then Donte Artis scored 13 and the last double digit scorer was Dearon Ward with 11.

Years past the Lady Bruins of Beddingfield and Rocky Mount have had some really good games against each other but not tonight.   Rocky Mount  spurted to a 28 to 6 first quarter lead and never looked back as the Lady Gryphons had the defense rolling creating turnovers and easy buckets.

J'Kyra Brown scored 12 point in the first few minutes and by the half Beddingfield could only score 15.  By games end Bown put 27 points on the boards.  She was followed by Tia Hudgins with 17.  Those two themselves out scored Beddingfield. Next on the scoring trail was Ty'Ais Cooper with 8.  Carmen Richardson had 6, Kelsey Daniels 5.  Those scoring four points were Alexus Cooper, Takeyra Thomas and Amani Kipp.

The best quarter of the game was the fourth quarter for Beddingfield as they hit double digits and were only out scored 13-10 in the final quarter.  Any hope of a Beddingfield comeback down 42-15 at the half  was squashed by the Gryphons who  in the third quarter out scored the Lady Bruins 26-2.

This is the second win of the season for the Lady Gryphons who beat Fike by thirty 36 on Saturday and now another Wilson county school by  54.  The boys are 3-0.

The Gryphons will not be home again until December 16th.  Friday they travel to Hertford County.  Considering this was a Tuesday night non conference game there was a good crowd on hand as it seemed the gryphon fans were ready for some basketball since the football season has now been over for a month.

Tebow Keeps Winning

The Denver Broncos put themselves into position Sunday beating San Diego in San Diego  to have a spot at the playoffs.  Tim Tebow has done a good job to not make mistakes and Denver has won 5 of the 6 games he has started at quarterback but let's get real.  Denver offense is poor.  If the offense is poor and they have won 5 of 6 then everybody must be forgetting about their defense.

I am glad that Tim Tebow has been able to put God and Jesus up front and in the public.  He has his haters because ofit but I respect his cause, but without their defense playing the way they are playing  they probably won 2 games.  John Fox has got the defense working to perfection.

Rocky Mount Gryphon runner Mason Holt ran Saturday in the Southeastern Regional of the Nike Cross Nationals in Wake Med Park in Cary.  This is a qualifier for the Nationals and you had to finish in the top ten.  Mason Finished 19th out of nearly 250 runners with a time of 17:07 in his 5K run.

It is time for fourth annual Tarboro live football show on the Stretchlon Sports Show next Sunday night on WHIG-TV.  Coach Jeff Craddock was gracious enough to appear live three years ago when they were clobbered in the finals.  The last two years have had much more joy during the show after winning two titles.  Left a message at Tarboro today with him that he was invited again next Sunday night but Monday's is the most hectic day since all the coaches gather that will be playing in State Championship games this weekend in Raleigh.

Talk with coach A B Whitley last night at church and the Vikings have several players that they have their fingers crossed that can play this Saturday including Todd Gurley.  The Vikings have plenty of bumps and bruises this season much more than any of the past three state championship trips.

The Tarboro Vikings are now 18-1 in the past four years of State playoff competition.

Rocky Mount Gryphons with three during the regular season tournaments to play in this year will not appear too many times at home.  Eight times to be exact.  Five times for conference and three non conference games and one of those is Tuesday night as they host Beddingfield.