Change Of Plan

Heading home from work Thursday I am trying to focus on the upcoming Faith Christian/Greenfield Volley ball game that I will be doing in a couple of hours.  The way we do sports around here is we all go to work do our every day job and then play sports caster after hours.  You show up an hour before the game and get the line ups and go.

This is not the NFL game of the week where the announcers study game film to prepare all week long but the bottom of the barrel broadcasting .  My cell phone rings and Sandra at the TV station wants me to help do the Football game of the week Fike at Hunt Thursday night.  The Faith Game would be on the Stretchlon Sports Show and football is on twice  at 11am Saturday and 9pm Sunday.  As they say in the business Faith got preempted.  We already have a game in the can for the Stretchlon Sports Show.

I joined Wes Bradshaw as we covered the Fike - Hunt non conference game in which Hunt wins 21-0.  Josh Joyner ran  for over 200 yards to lead the way for Hunt including a 91 yard third quarter score which proved to be the last points of the game.  Hunt is solid again this year.  Their quarterback committed to the United State Military Academy this week where he plans on playing football and baseball.  He can pass when needed.  You know Randy Raper isn't going to chunk it all that much but any time they need it they can.

You had better be ready to play Fike.  This is the best they have looked since the team that went to the State Finals.  Don't expect them to go winless in league play.  They moved the ball on Hunt until the 25 yard line all night. They had a chance to get the lead in the first half but threw an interception in the enzone.  You will never see this in the record book but Hunt returned another interception in the enzone and returned it 109 yards for a touchdown but a block in the back killed the play.

Thursday Rocky Mount Volley ball swept Southern Nash to start out conference play at 4-0.  This sets up a Tuesday match with Northern Nash for the outright lead.

RM tennis beat Southern Wayne 7-2.  Rose JV's beat RM 28-14.  Northern Nash JV's hosted Laney High school.  The game was suppose to start at 6pm in order to give Laney a early start to get back to Wilmington on a school night.  Laney coaches forgot about the early start and didn't arrive until after six at Northern.

You may ask why did Fike-Hunt played on Thursday.  Knowing that this game would draw big crowds the game was moved to Thursday to beat the rain scheduled for Friday night late.  Somebody at Hunt forgot to check the Thursday night Forecast as it rained off and on most of the game but they still had a nice crowd.  The bottom fell out about 20 minutes after the game was over.

Cross Country Takes Weekly Meet

The Rocky Mount boys cross country team won this week's conference met which was held at Hunt High school.  The Gryphons totaled 41 points while Northern Nash finished second with 78.  Fike finished third amassing 84 points closely followed by Nash Central with 92.  Hunt garnered 95 points and Southern Nash had 97.  Only 19 points separated second from sixth.  Gryphon Junior Mason Holt finished second in the over all meet running a sub 18.15.

The girls race was won by Nash Central as their top five runners came in to give them just 46 points.  Fike finished second with 52 followed by Rocky Mount at 60.  Hunt wasn't that far behind with 63 then it jumps to Southern Nash with 114.  Northern doesn't have enough runners to qualify in the team score.

Lady Gryphon volleyball traveled to Southern Vance to make up a match that was suppose to take place during the week when school was out for the Hurricane.  SV won 3 games to one.  SV won game one 25-10 but Rocky Mount came back in game two 25-23.  SV won games three and four 25-23.  So three of the four matches were nail biters.  RM travels to Southern Nash for a conference match today.

Gryphon Girls tennis had a match at  Eastern Wayne and they were defeated by a 6-3 score.

Need to follow up on Xavier Macklin first year playing pro baseball.  His summer season ended last Friday night as Vermont was knocked out in the semi finals of the New York Penn Playoffs.  X hit 230 his first year getting 35 hits in 152 at bats.  He struck out 47 times in 152 at bats.  When the X man made contact of the ball he hit 340 but striking out lowered his batting average 110 points.  I bet the A's have him in winter ball this fall working on making contact.  It shows when he hits it he gets on base.

Tonight the TV cameras of the Stretchlon Sports Show  will be a Faith Christian as we will be covering Volleyball in the Gym against Greenfield from Wilson.  I don't recall that I have ever covered  VB there before so this is probably our first ever game to cover on TV.  It will also be my first time to see the completed building that Faith has there now.  This is the first year that their entire school from elementary to high school has all been on one campus.