Only Needed One Hit

Tonight's Big East battle for first place was a classic hitting team versus a pitching team. Hunt's lone conference lost was nearly three weeks ago when the Gryphons beat Hunt 7-3 at their place.

Matthew Berry Open the bottom of the first for the Gryphons reaching first base on a throwing error by the third basemen. Spencer Bell singles and Collins Cuthrell coaxed a walk from starting pitcher Ches Lamn. Thomas Berry came up with the bases loaded and when he got back to the dugout the Gryphons had four runs on the board after Berry deposited a Lamn pitch on the other side of the right center outfield wall.

If four Rbi's were not enough T Berry singled and drove in run number five in the third and even came to bat with two runners on and if he could have rapped another home run would have set a Gryphon record for rbi's in a game at eight, but he grounded out to second.

Thomas was the hitting star going two for three and five rbi's.Spencer Bell collect two hits and scored two of the five rbi's Berry had. Benton Moss was also two for three and Matt Berry and Collins Cuthrell each had a hit.

Hobbs Johnson threw over a hundred pitches as Hunt coaxed three base on balls and Johnson plunked two others. When it counted Hunt could get only two hits and the only base runner to reach third got there on Johnson's best fast ball of the night that cleared the head of Matthew Berry at first on a pick off attempt that the runner reached third on the over throw. Johnson still struck out eleven and the most important stat no one crossed the plate.

Gryphons 5 Warriors 0

Gryphons take control of Big East baseball race with three games to go and a two game lead. There is no time for celebrations as the Gryphons are right back at it Thursday with a conference game at Fike. The Gryphons win number 18 on the season and are now 7-0 in conference play.

Lady Gryphon soccer met arch rival Northern Nash tonight at Northern and two goals by Casey Cooke and Syndey Browder powered Rocky Mount over Northern 2-0. The ladies finish up the regular season Thursday at Nash Central and a victory would clinch the regular season championship for the Lady Gryphons.

Lady Gryphon softball falls to Hunt in another double digit loss. The ladies are still looking for their first win of the season.

I will be at Nash Central Thursday covering softball as Nash Central host Northern Nash.

Forecasted Out

If you remember back during football season during the week of the tropical storm, the forecast for three days was for the storm to move into our area on a Friday Morning. I think every school in eastern North Carolina played on that Thursday to beat the storm except for Northern Vance. If you recall Rocky Mount was the team that was suppose to play Northern Vance.

Today the weather forecast has called for scattered thunder showers with the potential of some being severe. Hunt and Rocky Mount got together and since the Hunt and the Rocky Mount baseball game could be for the championship, at least as of today it is for the lead they decided to reschedule for Wednesday night. Softball has been changed to Wednesday also.

I have no problem when games are changed because of potential safety reasons. I am in front of my computer now and if the game was going on it would probably be in the first inning. Unfortunately the sun is still shining. Looks like the judgement missed on this one but I say better safe than sorry.

This however is not good for me as Wednesday night is my groups night to cook supper at church and I am one of the bottle washers. We are usually finished just about 7.00pm which means I hope Wes can PA Wednesday night cause the first inning will be going by the time I'm there.

This forces Rocky Mount to play Hunt Wednesday and Fike at Fike Thursday. Talk about two vital games. If the Gryphons win both games they will clinch first place because they would have beaten Hunt twice and would own the tie breaker.

Lady Gryphon soccer has become a juggernaut. Monday they beat Southern 9-0. They will finish the regular season with back to back matches on Wednesday and Thursday. Northern and Nash Central. Next week is the Big East soccer tournament at Hunt. I would guess that the ladies will get a home game in the playoffs and the question comes up will they be forced to moved their home game away from school like the boys did in the playoffs last year because of the lights.

The tennis team is competing in the conference tournament this week at Barton College. I think this is the team week and next week the individuals take their shot.

The Charlotte Bobcats were swept by the Orlando Magic in the first round of the NBA playoffs. The good news is they were in every game and the Bobcats were very competitive this year. One more good player and they just might be a player in the NBA playoffs next year.

Academy Tops Faith

I was behind the microphone for the RMA-Faith baseball game played tonight at RMA. RMA's Fletcher Hunter went the distance for the Eagles in posting a 5-3 win over their arch rivals in Rocky Mount the Faith Christian Warriors.

RMA collected seven hits off Faith starter Zach Whichard who took the loss for the Patriots. Adam Bayless lead the way with two hits but the big blow was a two rbi double by Fredrick Frobose. Lucas Bayless collected a hit along with Brady Jackson, Colt Brake and Aston Love .

The three hits for Faith belonged to Christian Davis, and Nathan Everette. Ben Barnes doubled for the third hit. RMA and Faith win on their home field this season playing each other.

Rocky Mount girls soccer was suppose to play Southern Nash this afternoon and I don't know whether it was rained out or not. Baseball did cancel it's game with Louisburg which was a makeup from one rained out way back. Coach Kent Cox told me tonight with both Hunt and Fike the two biggest conference games of the year coming up this week he felt like he needed all his pitching available if needed in these two conference games. I don't fault him there. Will Matthew Berry be back to play against Hunt tomorrow night? A doctors appointment Tuesday will tell if he is well enough to get his bat back in the lineup.

Four N C State football players have been arrested on campus for smoking dope. I don't know how you feel about it but I don't care who you are, if you get a free ride to go to school whether it's a academic or athletic scholarship and you violate the law representing who ever then I think first of all they should be kicked out of school much less still be on the football field. This goes right along with the NFL discipline of Ben Roethlisberger, when you are on scholarship you should be held to a higher standard.

I'm not really sure whether Ben Roethlisberger thinks he did any thing wrong in getting his suspension. In his statement today he says he accepts the penalty but he did not commit a crime. I don't think he sees that when you have one of your employees lead a drunk college girl to a bathroom, then you follow her and get your employee to prevent anyone else from going into that bathroom and you don't see anything wrong with that. He'll be in jail within two years if he doesn't realize that picture is not quite right, cause he will do it again.

Oh by the way did you know that his body guard who is a Pittsburgh policeman was fired as a policeman for his actions during this fiasco. But Roethlisberger doesn't see he did anything wrong. Oh Brother!

ESPN Picks Mabry All American

This past week ESPN put Tashawn Mabry on their Rise All American team. That means he is seen as one of the fifty best basketball players in the country. Still Mabry has yet to make an announcement on his future in college. Rumors abound that N C State may be calling now that Mays has announced he is leaving Raleigh to go play elsewhere.

Just yesterday two of Rocky Mount's best football players this century went undrafted in the NFL. Any athlete that decides in life that they want to be a professional athlete had better realize that being a professional is just short of winning the MEGA lottery. You put a lot of time in it and very few see the pot of gold.

This week the tennis team starts the conference tournament which will be played at Barton college. Soccer has it's final week of regular season and they head down the home stretch in the lead. Baseball has it's biggest week of the year. They have a non-conference game Monday and then Host Hunt Tuesday and a trip to Fike Thursday. Hunt and Fike if they win both could give then a two game lead with two games to go. One loss and every pitch will be important next week.

I love sports, I guess it is the competition I don't really know. I can watch a pee wee game and as long as both sides are equal I can enjoy watching it. I enjoy watching baseball as much as any sport because you can carry on a conversation while the game is going on with out yelling at the person you are talking to.

I really enjoy college baseball but college baseball has got to make a decision for the betterment of the game. They either have to go back to wooden bats or shorten the games to seven innings. College hitters are so strong a pop up off the handle can fly over the fence. The hitters have such an advantage that there are very few college games that the loser doesn't get ten runs.

Wooden bats are a major cost as many as get broken during a year. I think a lot of arm troubles that pitchers have can be traced to pitching too much during the year without time off to rest arms. I think travel leagues can be blamed for that. Colleges leave their starting pitchers in way to long because first off they are the best pitchers they have, but in three games series by the third game every one is out of pitchers and you get 18-13 games.

I don't know if you know this or not but North Carolina is the only American legion state that still plays nine inning games. Why? Aluminum bats wear pitchers out and teams don't have enough pitchers to play three or four games a week like legion does. If you were there during the legion season last year we beat Wilson one game 32-5 mainly because the fences are too close for legion players.

Free Agents

The baseball draft last June two Nash county players Tyler Joyner and Brian Goodwin chose to wait and play division one college baseball. Today during the third day of the NFL draft two former Rocky Mount High stars in football waited for the phone to ring but the calls never came.

Terrell Hudgins and Stephan Virgil did not have long to wait as their phones did ring but it was after the draft was over. Both having starred at Rocky Mount High school and both played their college ball rather close to each other. Hudgins in Elon and Virgil in Blacksburg Virginia.

Terrell Hudgins is heading to Dallas to try to make the Dallas Cowboys and Virgil will be heading north to make the Buffalo Bills. Hudgins the all time FCS pass catcher will try to make the Cowboys who have as their quarterback the second best rated active quarterback in the NFL in Tony Romo. Virgil will try to intercept passes in a division that has Tom Brady as one of the quarterbacks he will face.

Both will be in rookie camps next weekend going through the first faze of trying to make it in the NFL. Free agents don't have the luxury of making the team because of their salary. They must earn their way on the team and even a slight injury could cause them to be cut at a moments notice.

Good luck to both!

The Nash County Relay For Life raised $278,000 as of the closing ceremonies this afternoon. That is not close to the goal of $330,000 but last year after the closing ceremonies they had raised just over $290,000 and by the end of August had pushed the total to $325,000. I think by the end of August they will go over $300,000 for the second year in a row. Not bad considering economic conditions in our area.

Don't have any good news to pass to you about Cousin Lauren. This week the Futures Tour is in Brownsville Texas and Lauren shot 76-76 and failed to make the cut. She is well traveled if nothing else. The four events on the Futures tour so far this year have started in Florida, then moved to Baja Mexico, back to Florida and now this week in Brownsville Texas which is on the Gulf of Mexico across the river from Mexico. I guess one thing the futures tour tries to do is make sure they are up to date in geography.

Relay Night

Have spent the last several hours at the football stadium taking part in the Nash County Relay For Life. Another good crowd on hand this year as the Relay tries to reach their goal of $330,000. If you haven't been there today the relay will be wide open until about noon Saturday. Come join the fun.

Nash Central gave the Gryphons all they wanted last night in baseball but in the end the Gryphons have too much pitching for most every team in our area. If the Gryphons go deep into the playoffs they must do a better job of hitting good pitching. If you remember in the second round last year the defense had a bad night and no timely hitting what so ever and the season was over. Give the Gryphon pitchers five runs and they will go far. Score just one or two in a couple of games and somebody else will advance.

Thank goodness the NCAA came to their senses and will only expand to 68 teams. That means that first Tuesday and Wednesday will now be a double header play in game and the four winners will take on all the #1 seeds.

You have to hand it to Roger Goddell the commissioner of the NFL. Four to six games is fair for Ben Roethlisberger. Goddell has told the NFL players they must stand up to a higher standard.

Back in 1970 as a rising senior in high school when I went to work for the radio station in Ahoskie each employee was given a license plate that said the station call letters WRCS. There were only like ten altogether but living in Ahoskie which was then about the size of Nashville you knew everyone and they knew you.

So the day they gave me my license plate it was like I was somebody now. I was told if there was any problem related to me embarrassing the radio station not only would I lose the license plate but my job. I was an ambassador for the station. That was my first lesson in life in marketing.

Saturday may be a big day for Stephan Virgil and Terrell Hudgins. The NFL draft starts again at noon Saturday an my guess is both will hear their name. You know back at the end of football season on this blog we named both as the top two players of the decade for Rocky Mount.

Take What They Will Give

Nash Central and Rocky Mount have played each other in fourteen innings of baseball this year. Thirteen of those innings the combined score is RMHS 4 and Nash Central 3. The seventh inning at their place was the seven run inning that blew a 1-1 game wide open.

Nash Central's three pitchers of Jordan Taylor, T J Taylor and Trellis Ashley held the Gryphon bats to just three hits. Those same three pitchers walked eight and hit a batter and all three of Rocky Mount's hits drove in a runner who had walked. Those three runs were good enough with Benton Moss on the hill for the Gryphons but it was not easy.

Moss gave up four hits including a solo home run by T J Taylor but when the game was over he had walked just one batter and struckout fifteen following up on his sixteen strikeout performance last Thursday.

The Bulldogs scored in the first after the second batter Jalen Hendricks doubles, stole third and scores on a throwing error to give the Bulldogs a 1-0. The Gryphons tied it in the bottom of the second on a base on balls to Hobbs Johnson a perfect sac bunt by Benton Moss an a rbi single by Tayloer Clontz. The Gryphons made it 2-1 in the third on a base on balls to Collins Cuthrell and an rbi single by Hobbs Johnson. The fourth inning is the same story a walk to Taylor Clontz and he scores a rbi single to Michael Whitehead. T J Taylor's solo homer in the sixth made it interesting but Moss struck out the side in the seventh.

Rocky Mount is 6-0 in conference play and 16-2 overall. Nash Central is 2-4 and 11-6 overall. Hunt beat Northern Nash 15-1 and Fike edged Southern Nash 8-6 in other conference action. Tuesday night the Gryphons host Hunt in what will be for the lead in the Big East as Hunt's only conference loss is to the Gryphons.

Softball loses again 15-0 to Nash Central. Sometimes weather messes up the schedule and Girls soccer played Fike for the second time in six days Wednesday at Fike and the Lady Gryphons have a strangle hold on the Big East Beating Fike 3-1. They have only lost once all year.