Saturday, November 24, 2012

Gryphons Dominant Knightdale Tournament

Last season the Lady gryphons made it all the way to the East Regional Final and the boys were the state champs.  Both have begun the 2012-13 high school basketball season taking the titles at the Knightdale 2012 Tipoff Tournament.

The Lady Gryphons won Friday night over 4-A Raleigh Enloe and tonight took on the home standing Knightdale team and for three quarters this game was up for grabs.  The Lady Gryphons finally took charge in the fourth quarter to win the championship 48-40.

Having won the most outstanding performer in the 3-A State Championship game Junior Donte Battle returns to lead the Gryphon boys who last night took down East Chapel Hill behind 34 points from Battle.  Tonight against the home team Knightdale the Gryphons shot off to a 10-0 lead but before either team got 20 Knightdale had taken the lead.
 
  Rocky Mount dominated the boards winning that battle 40 to 21.  Jaquel Bryant lead the rebounding getting 13 while Battle pulled down 11.    Rocky Mount also won the turnover game making 24 while the Gryphon defense could only cause 17.  Miss handling of the basketball kept this one within reach for a while until the Gryphons put it away early in the fourth quarter.  The biggest lead of the game came on a Knightdale turnover in which Brodrick Caudle was heading in for a snowbird layup but instead laid the ball off the top part of the backboard and Donte Battle flushed home a slam dunk to give the Gryphons a 16 point lead with four minutes to go. 

Donte Battle lead the Gryphon scoring with 23, Mason Hines 15, M J Gainey 14 and Jaquel Bryant had 11 giving the Gryphons four double digit scorers.     Final Gryphons 82- Knightdale 68

North Carolina finishes their 2012 football season beating Maryland to give Larry Fedora an eight win season in his first year in Chapel Hill.  N C State finished it's regular season with a 27-10 win over BC.  The Pack 7-5 waits now on where it will go bowling.  Heard this on the pregame show when asked about his 16 seniors playing their last game Tom O'Brien lamented that all 16 will graduate.  Two already are in graduate school 12 will graduate in December and the last two in May.  Despite how fans feel about wins and losses it would be hard to fire a coach who is graduating his team.  This senior class was Tom O'Brien's first fully recruited class at N C State.