Northern Falls In Regional

The top priority for the Lady Knights of Northern Nash was stop Jamie Cherry of West Craven the Carolina bound mighty might  and in trying to do so Northern paid the cost having severe foul trouble for Alexus Hill at the half and Susie  Sykes soon joined Hill and After being tied at the half 24-24  Cherry and West Craven pull away winning 57-45.

The Lady Knights  finish the season 26-2 and their four year record during senior Alexus Hill's basketball career stands at 87-13.  To say the least no practice since Saturday did not help the situation as any time you play a division one player the caliber of Cherry you need to be able to prepare more than let's see how it goes once the game starts and we will make adjustments on the fly. Cherry and West Craven were simply too good for that.

Cherry scored 35 for the Eagles while Hill saddled with fouls finished her high school career with only four.  Kiana Thomas led Northern with 14 and Alexia Hines collected 10.

This afternoon Rocky Mount baseball hosted Eastern Wayne a team that had given up one Run in the first 16 innings of the season including beating Hunt 1-0.  Cody Smith to the mound for the Gryphons and today Smith pitched the game of his life as the Gryphons win their first game of the season 7-3 over the Warriors.

Smith pitched six innings and did not give up a hit. He walked just one batter and one batter reached by error.  Working on a cold afternoon Kent Cox even with a no hitter dangling in front of him stuck to his guns and pulled Smith who he had on a pitch count. Eastern Wayne scored three unearned runs in the 7th as Sam Lilly started the 7th  gave up two hits and the Gryphon defense had a chance to make two outs but failed to execute plays and Cox had to bring in Will Edwards with two outs and the bases loaded with three runs across the plate.

The Big East will have a team playing for the East Regional  final for the fourth time in five tears as Hunt has beaten Havelock 68-60.  The Warriors eliminate the team who had beaten Rocky Mount on a desperation three last Wednesday night.

Hunt lead 34-30 at the half,lead by 11 at the third quarter turn and lead by 13 at 52-39 when Havelock began whittling on the lead that at one point was 55-50.

Too Much To Cover

There has been so much high school basketball to cover over the last three weeks or so it leaves little time to comment or other items worth talking about.  Since we have an open page let's catch up on some stuff.

I don't know whether there has ever been a better Carolina -State game than the one last week. T J Warren and Marcus Paige's duel was one of the best see if you can match this games of all time.  In any game that goes over time and the final score is not decided until the last second there is plenty of chances for ref calls to effect the outcome.  Tell me a game now-a-days that everyone isn't upset one way or the other after a game these days.

Saturday former Gryphon Benton Moss pitched the first complete game of his career as Benton won his first game of the year 5-1 over North Florida.  He allowed one run on six hits going the distance.  It also was win number 700 for Mike Fox.  Isn't it ironic that the major milestone in Fox's coaching career would be delivered by a player from the Rocky Mount area when Fox spent time while at North Carolina Wesleyan.

I want to congratulate Justin Hite and Nick Petrowicz of the Rocky Mount Telegram in their recent awards they receved concerning covering sports in this area.  I know as a one man operation  I can only obtain information that is at my finger tips.

The sports department at the Telegram is a three man operation which has one college NC Wesleyan to cover plus about ten high school in their coverage area and that doesn't include any other sports event that might pop up in the area.

We all like to open up the paper each day and see what every team in the area did last night which is physically impossible for Justin, Nick and sports Editor Jesse Nunnery to do.  So little time and so much to cover.  Keep up the good work guys you are all joys to work with.

We way this basketball season has unfolded what else could put a capper on the season other than Northern Nash's regional semi final game getting pushed back a day because of bad weather.  Northern has had the ability through out the weather distress to be able to keep on winning despite the lack of practice time.  West Craven is by far the best team Northern has played this year and we hope later tonight that Northern over came another adversity and has another game to play Saturday.