Baseball playoffs

It had been 108 years since the Cubs and White Sox have been in the baseball playoffs at the same time. After this year, if you pull for either Chicago team you had better hope they don't make it again together for another 108 years.

The Cubs, who everyone thought was the best in the National League, was vacuumed right out of the playoff in three straight games. They were 0-2 at home.

The White Sox did one better and lost three games to one - winning at least one of two at home.

The Dodgers and Phillies will make a very good National League Championship Series and I am sticking with the Dodgers.

The American League finds the upstart Tampa Bay Rays playing the Red Sox. who knocked off my choice for the World Series, the California Angels of Anaheim of Orange County or Pasadena.

I think part of the Angels' problems in the playoffs is they don't know who they are. They really have no identity.

I would really like to see Manny and the Dodgers play the Red Sox in the Series, but I think the Rays may play in their first World Series.

Right this minute, the best organization in baseball is the Red Sox. They proved this year they didn't mind taking a risk getting rid of Manny. In return, they got a player, Jason Bay, who has filled in nicely in Manny's Spot.

Comparing them with the Yankees, all the Yankees do is go out and spend more money and show little results. The Red Sox will dump an aging player, regardless of whether he still has anything left, but the Yankees keep getting older.

I think one problem the Yankees have is they think they are smarter than everyone else.
I would really love for the Rays to win the World Series because that's where George Steinbrenner lives.

I thought the Red Sox -Angels winner was going to win the World Series and now that the Red Sox are there, I will be pulling for the upstarts - the Tampa Bay Rays.

Thank goodness none of the four playoff series went five games. The rate that WTBS was showing the games every other day, the World Series could not have had two teams until November.

Turning our attention to football - the round kind, last night several of the Rocky Mount soccer players went to Wilson Fike hoping that Fike would help beat Northern Nash. It would've given the Gryphons the NEW 6 Conference lead with three games to play.

Fike squandered a 2-0 lead last night in the match and lost in double overtime to Northern Nash, 3-2.

Now when Fike comes to Rocky Mount, the shoe will be on the other foot as the Knights will be hoping the same thing happens. A Fike victory would help them out.

First things first. RMHS soccer has a home match Wednesday afternoon against SouthWest Edgecombe.

Not only will the baseball team be receiving its state championship rings Friday night, but Jacobi Jenkins will get one as well for his individual state championship in the 110 meter hurdles.

T-minus three days and counting until Northern is in our house!

Nitty Gritty Time!

I had an opportunity this afternoon to do the Gryphon boys soccer game with Southern Nash for TV.

Matt Moore's four goals and Justin Marsigli's three assist and a goal led the Gryphon rout, 7-1 over the Firebirds.

Tim Bishop and Ben Chavis added goals for the 12-2-1 Gryphons. The victory moves them to 6-1 in NEW 6 Conference play.

This team is loaded with five senior starters: Justin Adams, Ben Boudreau, Matt Moore, Hunter Perry and Nathan Pope. Those coming off the bench include seniors Francisco Alfaro, Zack Bullock, Ben Chavis and Kashyap Kauai.

This team has a load of experience from these seniors, but the one place where a lot of faith has been placed on a freshman is goalie Drew Gorham.

Any time a freshman plays, he must really be talented and Gorham has started the entire season for the Gryphons in goal.

His goals-against average is hovering near one per game and he had a shutout today until a Gryphon header went in the goal instead of down the field.

The Gryphons also put five underclassmen on the starting lineup with junior Justin Marsigli, then sophomores Mark Gray, Andrew Morales and Matt Williams; ninth grader Andy Martin joins Gorham in the starting lineup for the Gryphons.

First-year head coach Drew Nick shows his excitement when he talks of the possibilities of this team for the remainder of the year, the conference tournament and state playoffs.

The Gryphons have Nash Central, SouthWest Edgecombe and Fike left during the regular season. If they win all three, they will finish no worse than tied for first - depending on how Northern Nash fares rest of the way.

Northern is hosting Fike tonight and the Gryphons have Fike next week, so Fike will be a big factor in how the regular season plays out.

Thursday night, the JV Gryphons will go after their 27th straight victory at Northern, and Friday night, the varsity goes after its 22nd straight regular season win on the field.

T-minus four days and counting until Northern Nash!

Power Football

If the Super Bowl was held next Sunday, the two teams playing for the title would be the Tennessee Titans and the New York FOOTBALL Giants.

There are 11 weeks to go in the NFL regular season. Let's wait and see if either even makes it to the league championship.

What do they both have in common? A running game! DEFENSE!!!!

Despite all the West Coast offenses and other so-called sophisticated schemes, the teams that win week after week are the running teams.

Even with the running game that New England had last year, it relied too much on the pass and when it needed a running game, they kept passing. In the end, scoring quickly on offense and putting your defense right back in the game is not good come the fourth quarter.

The Rocky Mount Gryphons have speed, but Thursday night when the game was tight in the second half, they relied on power football to get the advantage in the game.

High school football is spattered with teams that try to spread teams all over the field. Year after year, the teams that go deep into the playoffs ram it down your throat running the football.

The teams that have had the best success on the Gryphons have been the teams that had a quarterback that was hard to bring down.

Western Alamance comes to mind for some reason.

Americus Williams from Northern Vance was that way last Thursday night. Do you realize we shut them out in the second half and they crossed the 50- yard line only once in the second half?

Friday night is the first night of conference football. The Gryphon Nation needs to be in the house as the baseball team will be receiving its state championship rings. ECU freshman Jacobi Jenkins will also receive one for winning the 3-A 110 hurdles state title.

Five players on the football team will be among those sporting new hardware: Collins Cuthrell, Brian Goodwin, Chris Pittman, Nick Hahula and Carter Varnell. From what I hear, all members of last year's team will be at the RMAC, even the five that have moved on to college.

Wes Bradshaw, our very own play-by-play man, who during the spring is the PA voice of Gryphon baseball, will be the master of ceremonies. We will bring the event to you live on AM 1390 as it happens.

There is no better way to celebrate a Gryphon crowning achievement than to do it in front of the Northern Nash faithful.

By the way, let me get on the Northern crowd for just a minute.

Now that the schedule has changed and RM-NN are playing the first game in the conference rotation instead of the last and Northern is on a one-game winning streak, there is no reason not to attend this game. If you remember the last time these two met in Rocky Mount ,at least the Knights' cheerleaders show up because no one else did for Northern.

T-MINUS five days and counting until The Game!

Triathlons, Golf, Football, etc.

I have to start off tonight with a little chest pumping!

Brooks, my only son, participated in a triathlon today in Pinehurst. This event had a one-mile swim, a 25-mile bike ride and a six-mile run. Why anyone would want to do such a ridiculous thing I just don't know, but he did.

More than 900 people struggled through the sandhills of Moore County and as soon as he finished up, he jumped in his car and rode to Raleigh to watch his beloved Wolfpack fight hard, but lose again.

His time was under three hours. His goal was 3 1/2 hours, so the pasta worked today.

Brooks left so fast that he didn't stick around for the totals, but he thinks he finished somewhere around 90th position. This is either his second or third attempt and he has a lot of potential, if he stays committed. He tells me his bike time was the ninth best of everyone there.

You may see Brooks riding his bike through the streets and countryside of Nash County whenever he is home from his job of working as a contractor for NOAA.

He goes out on fishing boats and makes sure fisherman don't over fish the oceans. When they catch loggerhead turtles, he tags them and releases them back to the ocean. About a month ago, he was on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico that was fishing for bull sharks and through his measurements, it proved to be the largest bull shark ever caught.

This weekend, my cousin Lauren Doughtie is playing golf for N.C. State a women's golf tournament in Chapel Hill. She is a senior and is a preseason All-America choice when women's golf gets cranked up in the spring.

This past golf season, she became the first N.C. State women's golfer to qualify for the NCAA Championships, and she qualified for the U.S. Women's Open. She won the Virgina State Amateur Championship and made the top 32 players in the U.S. Women's Public Links Championship.

Turning to football...

Why have replays in college football if when a play is called wrong on the field, the replay booth lets a mistake stand anyway.

N.C. State had a call today that clearly the replay could change, but didn't. Even tonight during Carolina's rout of Connecticut (38-12), the Tar Heels stripped a ball away in the field of play and clearly recovered it, but replay let the mistake on the field stand.

Duke has come down from Cloud Nine after being shutout today by Georgia Tech (27-0).

State continues to play hard and inspired, but lose a heartbreaker (38-31). Tonight, Carolina has taken the step up for at least this week joining Virginia Tech as the best in the ACC.

I guess I insulted Virginia asking what was wrong with them as they embarrassed Maryland. What happened to Maryland? Virginia 31, Turtles Zero.

Today, Elon took a major step to putting its name in the NCAA FCS playoffs, if they don't fall apart as the season keeps going. It's next major test is App State.

And finally tonight....

I have not talked to him, but I would bet my failing 401K plan that B.W. Holt was in Blacksburg, Va. today.

You know he and wife Barbara had to be there to watch his former player Stephan Virgil play for the Hokies. Today was a special day as new D-I member Western Kentucky was on the field in Blacksburg and the Holts' only child Stu happened to be the running backs coach for WKU.

The Hokies won, but it was a ball game: 27-13.

T-minus six days and counting to the Northern-Rocky Mount football game!

The NEW 6 so far

The last few years the NEW 6 3-A has proven to be one of the best football conferences in the state.

This year seems to be no different. Now that the non-conference portion of the schedule is over let's look at the conference.

Fike - 5-1 Stung tonight by the Beddingfield passing attack Fike loses for the first time 34-28

Rocky Mount- Having played in the Eastern Finals last year everyone around the state is aware of the Gryphons.

Nash Central - Having lost their first game of the season to Tarboro, people are not paying attention to the Bulldogs. They have not lost since that opener.

Unlike Rocky Mount, which discovered the ineligible player problem in Nash County, Nash Central had to forfeit two games, but on the field it's 5-1.

SouthWest Edgecombe- Like Nash Central, the Cougars lost their first game and stand 4-1. You need to remember that SouthWest played its first game of the season at West Craven, which is still undefeated. West Craven had already played one game when it met the Cougars, so that was a LARGE advantage that night.

Southern Nash - The Firebirds are up one week and down the next. They have been up more than down at sport a 3-2 record.

Northern Nash - A couple of blowout losses in the first couple of games but the Knights continue to improved each week. The last two games went to the wire with a chance to beat Bertie at Bertie and last week's last-play victory over Southern Vance. Northern stands at 1-5.

The conference has an overall 24-10 record on the field as conference play cranks up next week. Northern is holding five of the ten losses.

Fike, Nash Central, Rocky Mount and SouthWest Edgecombe are 20-4 in games played on the field. This championship might not already be sewn up for the Gryphons.

Strength of schedule is very important when preparing for conference play. Looking back at the Gryphons' six opponents record to date..... East Forsyth, J.H. Rose and Hertford County have a combined 11-4 record in their games not involving the Gryphons.

Rose lost tonight at home to West Craven 29-6. West Craven is unbeaten in 3-A play and very well may challenge for the No. 1 seed in the 3-A eastern bracket when the playoffs roll around.

The other end of the spectrum are Southern Wayne, Wilson Hunt and Northern Vance. They are a combined 4-11 when playing some one other than the Gryphons.

That makes our overall record of the teams on our schedule a combined 15-15. That's not bad
even though a couple of teams were not very good in our six games so far.

You know one of the reasons that the conference started rotating the schedule was because the way the conference football has played out in the first three years of the league. Rocky Mount and SouthWest have pretty much played for the championship the first week of conference play.

That's why we are playing Northern Next week, not at the end of the season. They rotated every team up one game in the schedule cycle.

So what has that caused? Next week, SouthWest plays host to Fike and then SouthWest entertains the Gryphons. The Cougars get the two of the top NEW- 6 teams at their place the first two conference games.

The last time the Gryphons went to Pinetops, they got beat on a Monday night 21-16.

In fact, all three games with SouthWest during the regular season have been played on a Monday night. All have been decided by a touchdown margin or less difference every time, except their first NEW 6 tilt (24-7, RM).

The first two weeks will tell us a lot about who might be the conference champion or either we will have to wait until the first Friday night in November.

Fike's loss tonight drops a potential undefeated team out of the running for the No. 1 seeding at the end of year. That is, of course, assuming some one will stay unbeaten all year long.

Right now, the unbeaten teams looking for the No. 1 seed in the east are West Craven, Beddingfield, which beat Fike tonight, but which earlier this year lost to Nash Central. They got that lost back after Nash Central had to give up the game on the forfeit, Rocky Mount and Eastern Alamance.

If all those teams end up unbeaten, a drawing will be held between the four teams to determine the top four seeds.

As the conference play unfolds, all four of these teams should be the first scores you look for if you are worried about seedings for the playoffs.

Season's One-Third Over

If this was the NFL, the exhibition season ended tonight.

This is high school football, so the non-conference portion of the Gryphons' schedule is over.

I've told you all week we needed someone make us sweat in the second half and we got that from Northern Vance.

Just because I said we needed it, didn't mean I wanted it. But we got it anyway.

What the Gryphons got was a team that thought it could beat us and did everything in its power to make it happen. In the end, the test that we needed we got and we passed.

Here we were playing a team that we should have played in three weeks ago - playing in front of a mostly empty stadium. If there was 500 paying customers, then there was a huge crowd. Only about 100 made the trip from Rocky Mount, including the cheerleaders.

They were playing on a Thursday (that's JV night). The field was muddy (a soccer match was played on it the night before). The baseball coach at NV, who was the PA announcer, said that they had a big rain Tuesday morning, but even in drought conditions, that field stays wet. Most importantly, we found out tonight other teams don't lay down and die when we show up.

We were given a supreme effort by a team with a slippery QB and a wide receiver who had the ability to make catches even when we had him covered.

The defense held them to seven points and a dropped punt snap supplied the other three points for them. They scored their 10 points in a two-minute span. The first half, the Gryphons' defense played as if they were suppose to fall down every time we touched them. However, the Vikings did not buy into that idea.

Here is a telling stat from this game which tells me why I am happy with this game.

In the first half, Rocky Mount had the ball four times. We had one touchdown, on field goal, a lost fumble and a dropped punt snap.

In the second half, we had a 86-yard scoring drive, a field goal, a one-play touchdown and we ran out the clock.

We had eight possessions and scored on five and ran out the clock on another. We did about as good as any other game. The Vikings did a great job of keeping the ball from us.

Junior running back Marquavis Alston is rounding into shape after his ankle injury at J.H. Rose . He now has 260 yards on 17 carries over the last two games.

QB Collins Cuthrell continues to throw long passes with accuracy and Keith Strickland continues to catch long passes.

The defense came to play in the second half and the Vikings' quarterback Americus Williams did a good job of eluding our pressure all night until the very end.

Bottom line tonight - we needed to see how we would play with the game on the line and we played the second half the way we played the first five games of the season - full-throttle.

The Gryphons passed a major exam - 26-10 over Northern Vance.

There is good news to pass along to you. As we signed off the air tonight, we reported that Nash Central and Bunn were tied 20-20 and heading into overtime.

In the third overtime, Nash Central scores first and makes a two-point conversion and Bunn scores on their first play, but misses the two-pointer, so the Bulldogs win 34-32.

I know everyone thinks that we should have put 50 on the board and because we didn't we didn't play well. We didn't play well in the first half because for the first time this year ,we were not spitting nails getting off the bus, but NV was.

We survived a challenge which will make us a better team as we head to conference play next week against Northern.

It's Baseball Playoff Time

Now that TBS no longer carries the Braves, I have not watched a total of 10 games all season.
I am just not fired up for the baseball playoffs.

Here's my predictions:

National League

Philadelphia in three games over Milwaukee. I'm glad a small market team made the playoffs, but Philly is better.

I know Joe Torre will get a lot of credit for this, but I am taking the Dodgers in four games. Without Manny, the Dodgers don't make the playoffs and Torre would be home with his Yankee buddies.

Dodgers over the Phillies in seven games .

American League:

The Chi-Sox will beat Tampa in four games just because this is Tampa's first time.

In four games, the Angels beat the Red Sox. This is probably the best playoff matchup of the entire playoffs.

Angels beat the Red Sox in six games.

This will set up a Freeway Series Angels and Dodgers. I like the Halos in six games.

For the first time in 108 years, both Chicago teams are in the playoffs at the same time. Sorry, no Northside against Southside World Series.

Now that baseball season is almost over, it is time to think back to the best thing that happened in baseball this year - The Home Run Derby at the All-Star game.

Raleigh's Josh Hamilton put on a show even though he did not win it. Who cares?

Hamilton was steady after the All-Star break, but no where near as good as his first half. But he still put up MVP numbers: .304 batting average; 32 home runs; 130 RBI. Not bad for a player who just three years ago was in the gutter because of drugs.

Terrell Owens is on the verge of tearing the Dallas Cowboys apart. Owens is complaining of not getting the ball enough in the loss to the Redskins.

He had 17 throws his way caught seven and dropped five. Good defense stopped the other five. If Owens repeats his history Dallas will have to dump him by next year.

All of this football talk about the Rocky Mount Gryphons, we seemed to have overlooked the boys soccer team. They are now 11-2-1. New head coach Drew Nick has really got this team playing well.

High school football at Northern Vance Thursday night. Can the Gryphon Express stay in high gear and the "D" Block shut down the another offense?

The answer is an hour away in Henderson Thursday night.

I can remember high school football all the way back to 1961. If this Gryphon team keeps up this pace they are at now both on offense and defense, this could be the best team I've ever seen.

In order to be considered that high up the ladder, there can't be a stumble rest of the way. A full season of 11 games remain for this team to be classified one of the greatest ever.

Come see for yourself. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.

Wes Bradshaw and I will tell you everything you didn't need to know about the Gryphons starting at 6.30 on the AM 1390's Batts, Batts and Bell Pregame Show.