Error Prone

There are three parts to baseball, offense, pitching and defense and so far this season Rocky Mount has shown little offense, some rather decent pitching and very sloppy defense.  Today for the first time this year Rocky Mount got double digit hits 10 on the game while the pitching despite giving up 12 hits would have held Southern Wayne to zero runs if the Gryphons didn't give the Saints four and five outs on the innings when they scored.

Rocky Mount found themselves down 6-3 but scratched their way into position to tie in the bottom of the 7th inning with bases loaded with two outs and failed to get the winning run home.  On this windy blustery day both teams committed five errors each and both sides got better pitching than the score would indicate.

Will Edwards found himself in a 6-3 hole pitching the first five innings and he gave way to Josh Carter, Carter the junior who was making his first pitching performance in his high school career got through the sixth and seventh innings not allowing a run.  Once Rocky Mount failed to finish off the game in the seventh Carter gave up two runs on three hits, one hit was a line drive which would have been out number three lost in the sun with nothing scoring.

Bikembe Kearney got three Gryphons hits.  Micah Varnell collected two hits.  Andy Morris, Sam Lilley, Logan Smith, Rashawn Harris and Will Edwards each reach base with a single.  The Gryphons drop to 1-4 on the season and return to action Tuesday with a home game against Corinth Holders a team that beat the Gryphons opening day 7-2.

Sad to hear that Rick Ruffin has decided to retire as basketball coach at Northern.  You know Rick arrived at Northern because at that time Northern Coach Mike Moseley was heading  to the new Nash Central High.  The reshuffled school boundaries worked to Nash Central's advantage and since the Birth of Nash Central  the Knights went from a high school with 1700 students down to around 1250 and their athletics have suffered.  It will be interesting to see how over the next few years  with the new boundaries to see  how everyone's athletic teams fare.

First Day Not Bad

Gryphon Baseball game today with Southern Wayne has been pushed up to 4:00pm due to extreme cold weather. This strange new thing called a five day ACC tournament with the upper deck curtained off to keep from TV showing the  the hay barn with no hay in the top loft.  Despite that the ACC put on any normal first day of Tournament action.

The only North Carolina team playing in day one Wake Forest made sure that day two would have two teams calling NC home.  They hardly ever trailed to Notre Dame the one team of the three coming  from the Big East that hasn't upheld their rating they had in Big East days.  Wake wins 81-69.

Miami and Virginia Tech played game two with the winner drawing  the Wolfpack at 7pm tonight.  This game went down to the wire and the Gobblers had a shot to tie at the end.

The third game of the night sent BC against GT  and it turned out to be the game of the night.  Forty  minutes wasn't enough so the Techsters  and Eagles played an extra five minutes before Tech advanced.

Wednesday night ECU and Wake Forest played a non conference baseball game at the refurbished Fleming Stadium which is the kickoff for the new look for Fleming.  Wake won 5-4 and the city of Wilson continues to be a major  baseball town with the Tobs and selected baseball games including hosting a college baseball regional while Doak Field in a Raleigh for N C State was hosting.

Nearly thirty years ago the city  of Rocky Mount rip down the rusty steel rafters of the old ball park while Wilson spent money on Fleming.  Today Rocky Mount has no baseball facility that seats more than 400 whole Wilson has given a face lift to their 3,000 seat shrine.

The city now wants to built a meeting place in down town Rocky Mount which will have no parking  and I know of no one that wants it to be built down town other than those who handle your money, I repeat none of those in power will put one red cent into the construction of this building.  Until property is purchase away from down town we can't let those decision maker who thirty years ago made the wrong decision on a beautiful ball park.  We can't stand for another wrong decision.

Rocky Mount High  baseball lost 9-1 Wednesday to Rose in Greenville, the Gryphons will host a Southern Wayne at 5pm today but it just might be moved to 4pm so stay tuned.