Tie At Top---Girls Disaster Time

If you are a Gryphon fan tonight is full of mixed emotions.  The Bad news  first,  4.01 left to play in the first half J'Kyra Brown driving down court tried to cut and she went down on her surgically repaired knee.  She had to be carried off the court.  The Gryphons lead 18-15 at the time. Hunt wins 50-48.

 Now the good news, In probably one of the best high school basketball games played since the Big East was made into a 3-A conference  Rocky Mount and Hunt played with two teams  with aspirations  at the state title played as if this was the title game and in the end M J Gainey hit a 12 foot  running baseline jumper with 1 second left on the clock to give Rocky Mount a 53-51 win.  Now the bad news, this was the worse officiated game ever.

Both teams play full court pressure defense and if you thought you were going to drive to the basket and take a lay up forget it.  I don't think one shot made it all the way to the basketball as shots were rejected and players tumbled to the floor going to the hole but very few whistles.  If you left your shoulder pads home  you are in the emergency room now cause you got beat up.

Hunt biggest lead was six and Rocky Mount once lead by four otherwise it was nip and tuck all the way.  Dwantae Sutton hit a three with 2:02 to play to give Hunt a three point lead at 51-48 but that would prove to be their last point of the game. Hunt out rebounded Rocky Mount 27-26.  Rocky Mount only had 10 turnovers while Hunt had 19 but every Gryphon TO came at just the wrong time.  Donte Battle lead the Gryphons with 20. MJ Gainey 16.  Hunt had three players in double figures Dwantae Sutton with 14, Keenan Tabron 11 and Justin Jefferson 10.

Immanuel King scooped up 8 rebounds  for the Gryphons while Daniel Westbrook had 7 for the Warriors.  Both teams play Wednesday and are both 5-1 in conference.  Hunt plays Northern Nash at Hunt .  Northern beat Sourthern Nash tonight on a shot at the buzzer 44-42 while Rocky Mount travels to Nash Central.

One of the things I have told you about Rocky Mount girls all year has been there was not enough help for J'Kyra Brown.  With Brown out of the game Carmen Richardson took the scoring load getting a career high 30 points but not one other player made an outside shot.  Rocky Mount relied on their defense to keep them in the game and it almost won the game for them but simply the Lady Gryphons without J'Kyra are not a very good offensive team.

All Lady Gryphon fans will hold their breath waiting to hear about J'Kyra's injury.  I would doubt she will play at all for the remaining two games this week  depending on the report of her injury.

Northern Nash Girls clobbered Southern Nash 71-19 and have a two game lead with four games to play heading down the stretch.

Rocky Mount is at Nash central Wednesday.