Baseball Brackets Set

***Lady Gryphon Soccer made the long ride to Currituck as they swamped Currituck 9-0 in the opening round of the state soccer playoffs.  Southern Nash as a #4 seed lost at Jacksonville 6-0 while the Big East #1 seed Hunt beat Washington 6-1.   Fike lost in a shoot out to D H Conley so Rocky Mount will get a home game on Saturday against Conley  ***

The 2013 state playoff baseball brackets have been released this morning so the answer to the question who do the Gryphons play is West Carteret the #3 seed from the Coastal conference.  They have and overall 14-7 record compared to the Gryphons 12-8.  Game time is set for 7pm Friday night as the new stadium will host it's first playoff game.

If overall records are any indication this game should be a toss up which will put a premium on scoring runs. All Gryphon fans know that pitching and defense is the Gryphon strength so those two parts of the puzzle need to work to perfection Friday.  I think you can count on Jeremy Johnson to be on the hill for the Gryphons and you know the best that Patroits have will be on the mound for them.

Currituck 17-3 who is the #1 in the Northeastern Coastal will host Fike 17-3 the Big East #3.  The winner of that game will play the winner of the Rocky Mount-West Carteret game.  If the Gryphons win and Currituck wins that game would be at Currituck.  Should the Gryphons win and Fike win then round two would be played in Rocky Mount.

Nash Central drew the short straw and will start out the playoffs playing the team most likely the favorite to win the east in D H Conley 21-2.  That game of course will be at Conley.  The Big East #1 Hunt 13-8 will host the #5 from the Coastal West Craven who has a record of 11-13.

The playoffs begin Friday with the second round scheduled for Tuesday and the third round Thursday of next Week.  This will leave for the winners that are still alive play round four that following Monday or Tuesday but here is a pet peeve of mine.  That creates that the two teams left playing for the east title will start a two out of three on that Thursday which could mean a team has to play four games in one week.  That is way too many games in one week.  How many teams even the great ones have that many pitchers to  pitch four games.

Quite A few Great Ones

I have had  a great privilege during my broadcast career to cover many players who went on to greatnesss.  Many of them at the time while I was covering them you could tell they were headed for more days on ball fields or basketball courts.

Kelvin Bryant and  Dominque Wilkinsall went on to great pro careers.  There was one that I had the chance  to cover once but at the time I had no idea that what I was telling the community  was the first step to the Hall Of Fame..

The time was the fall of 1975. The Ahoskie radio station for the first time  was going to carry a couple of Chowan Junior College football games on the radio. Chowan under the direction of Jim Garrison was developing into a power house in the Junior College ranks.  Back then Chowan was a good place to go if you were a good athlete but not strong in the class room.  Spend two years at Chowan graduate and then spend two years  at a D-1 school.

The second game that we carried was a weekday afternoon I think a Tuesday and the freshman team from N C State was on campus in Murfreesboro.  Obviously Chowan was full of Freshman and Sophomores while the Wolfpack had all freshmen.

Before the game was over  Chowan had won the game but not before a skinny back from High Point had riddled the Braves for 264 yards rushing.  The next Saturday that skinny freshman was on the varsity at NC State and before his college career was over Ted Brown had become the all time leading rusher in the history of the ACC.  He is still the all time leading rusher.

Yesterday Ted Brown  was named to the College Football Hall Of Fame.  I can't remember if that game at Chowan was his first college game or not.  It was my second college game in the booth.  Ted Brown spent I think eight years in pro football where he was great at catching passes out of the back field.

One of the things that I really like about sports is at any game you might see someone that you had no idea could do it play  the the greatest games of their life.  Then from that point on they play that way all time time.  Ted Brown didn't make the varsity until the season was under way.  Today he is on the way to the  Hall Of Fame.  We never know when any event starts that on this particular day we might be getting ready to watch greatness at work.  That's why I keep going.  You never know what future holds for some of these athletes.