Collins Cuthrell Named Peach Belt Player Of Year

   Former Rocky Mount Gryphon Collins Cuthrell was named the Peach Belt Player  of the year in baseball tonight at the Peach Belt Tournament banquet.  The redshirt senior third baseman missed becoming the second player in Peach Belt history to Win the triple crown leading the conference  in batting average, home runs and RBI.

Cuthrell hit 443 batting average which was second in the league after the leader hit 445.  He did lead in homers 25 and RBI 74.  The Peach Belt tournament starts Saturday.  Cuthrell on the year finished high up in the nation in just about every offensive category and is still in the running for the National Player of the Year.

Rocky Mount High School girls relay team took home two state championships Friday and they were lead by a freshman.  London Green a Gryphon Freshman and Nyana Edwards and Laneeja Sheppard were members of both winning teams in the 4x100.  They were joined by Teyanna Dessaure in the winning time of 49:08

They also won the 4x200 in a time of 1:43:36 and and they were teammates with Brittany Bickford in becoming state champs.  The two wins were good for 20 points and the sum total that Rocky Mount scored on the day.  The Lady Gryphons finished tenth in the team total leading the Big East.  Nash Central finished 12th.

Only three big East teams scored points for their teams.  Rocky Mount finished 21st, Hunt 13th and Fike 24th.  The most impressive performance of the day came from Fike's Ian West.  You may have seen him be the Tom Suitor Extra Effort Award winner last night and today he won the pole vault reaching 16 feet which is the state record in all classifications.

Today was not a good day for the Big East in tennis as both doubles teams from Fike lost and both singles players from Nash County lost.  Northern Nash singles player Tremel lost in the quarter finals 6-3- 6-1 while Rocky Mount singles player George Shannon lost 6-0-6-0.  The Regional doubles team of Reid Harris and Sunny Sandusky lost in the quarters 6-4-6-2.  Fike other doubles team Lee Holmes and Will Benson lost 6-0-6-3.