40th Annual Holiday Invitational

There have been a couple of million bounces of the ball that have occurred since that first tournament back in 1972.  Rocky Mount won the first one ever and will always be a trivia question as long as this tournament last.  They say that in order to endure you must grow and that is certainly what has happened over the years.

Now there are 20 boys teams, so many in fact that three different tournaments will take place with three different winners.  25 total boys games will be played starting December 27th at Holiday Gym on the campus of Broughton High School.  The growth process has added over the years two different  brackets for girls which adds 16 more games to the schedule.  There are now so many games that one location can't handle it all.  Cary Academy will host 13 girls games and one boys contest.  Three of the girls games will be held at Broughton.

December 26th the girls have the tournament all to themselves at Cary Academy.  The first game starts at 11AM  an as close to 12.40pm the Lady Gryphons will see their first Holiday Tournament.  They meet up with Holly Spring in the second game of the tournament.  Should they lose this game they play again at 11.00am Tuesday for 3rd place.  A victory on Monday will send them to the bracket championship game at 4pmTuesday.

The boys don't see action until Tuesday and they get the host school Broughton.  Should the girls win on Monday they will be playing in their bracket  championship as the same time the boys play their opening round game.  I hope Gryphon fans have a choice to make on which game to go to.  Should the boys lose their opener they play their consolation game at 11AM on Wednesday.  If they are an opening round winner they get two days off and don't play again until their bracket championship at 5.40pm on Friday.

At some point the first championship team of the Tournament the Rocky Mount Gryphons will will be honored  and that should be fun.

Some of the top college prospects in the country will be in Raleigh playing all next week.  Seats are hard to come by for paying patrons because many seats will be filled by college coaches who will be drooling at some of the prospects they will be trying to lure to their school.  It will be a time for Terrill Hilliard, Tevin Taylor, Levon Brutus, K J Peoples and Tobias Hilliard  to lift the eye brows of college coaches who will be looking to fill their rosters.