Girls Beast Of The Big East

The Rocky Mount Lady Gryphons won their 14th consecutive conference  Track and Field championships this week.  That will carry you back all the way for the entire seven years of the Big East, all four years of the NEW 3A and the last three years when the Gryphons were classified as 4A in the then Big East 4A.

The Ladies out scored  Nash Central  208- 176 to take the crown.  Laneeja Sheppard was named the outstanding Female in the event after she collected wins in the 100 meters, Triple jump and part of the winning relay team in the 4x100.

Rocky Mount boys were not to be out done by the girls and won the boys side of the meet beating out Nash Central who finished second followed by Northern Nash and Southern Nash.  Gryphon Johathan Romero won three events the Long Jump, 110 meter high hurdles and the 300 meter high hurdles and those three victories got him named as the male athlete of the meet.

Nest Saturday May 14th is the next scheduled event for all teams and athletes who have qualified to the Regional which will be held at Fike High School.  The event starts at 8am and any athlete who has an early event will be up early to get there.  It has to start early as it will take all day to get all the events in pending any rain delay.

Finally during this week's NCHSAA meetings the board of directors of the N C  high school athletic association is going to try a different method of football and basketball seedings in the fall and winter of 2016.  The main purpose is to not have conference teams face off against each other at least in the opening round which the Big East has faced several times in the past few years.

All conference champions will be seeded and any tournament champion in basketball will be seeded if it is not the regular season champion.  All others invited to the playoffs will be placed according to record and I think any time there is a conflict with two conference teams facing each other in the first round the unseeded team will be moved else where.

The state will be divided into for sections East West, Mideast and Midwest.  That to me tells me that any time four teams from the Big East are in any playoff tournament two will be in the east and two will be placed in the Mideast.  Should a fifth team make it because of over all record I bet you can count on that team being shipped to the Midwest.

This does not guarantee that conference teams will not meet in the second round but it is not likely.  So using my thinking cap I would think the east will be say from the coast and include every school to say Raleigh.  The Mid East would be say the I-85-I-40 corridor and Midwest the Greensboro area and Winston Salem towards Charlotte area,  and the West being Statesville West to Tennessee.  Obviously it will have to be divided where the same amount of schools would be in the same region so don't count on my figuring to be perfect.

This is a step in the right direction as long as you are going to stick to the 64 teams in 3-A being in the playoffs every year.  I still will stick to my guns that if they dropped one round we would eliminate the 3-7 or worse teams from the playoffs and quit having 70-0 opening round football games or 85-36 first round basketball games.  Let's do like tennis let the best play the best from the opening round.