Defense Leads Gryphon Comeback

The Rocky Mount Gryphons found themselves down 38-28 early in the third quarter but it wasn't a ten point spree that lead to victory in the Eastern Regional Semi finals but some good old fashion defense and the Gryphons live to play another day beating the defending state Champions 65-62 in front of about 5,000 fans in Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum.

A 15-14 lead disappeared quickly as the second quarter began and by half time a smooth Northern Guilford squad had built a 35-26 lead. Most of the second quarter points came off of easy lay ups either on fast breaks or break down on the Gryphon defense to give them an open shot under the basket.

But, tonight was a night when the referees left their whistles home and they let both teams play. Four minutes to go in the third quarter there had only been three fouls called the whole game and when Rocky Mount went to the free throw line with 3.09 to go in the third quarter it was the free throws of the game. By quarters end the Gryphons had trimmed the lead to 49-44.

Two stretches in the fourth quarter that made the difference. Milking a 60-56 lead Northern slowing things down and the Gryphons caused four straight trips Northern Guilford failed to get a shot off. But, for every stop the Gryphons made they needed to score and with about four minutes to go in the game Tashaawn Mabry touched the ball every trip down court and Tashawn played like the All State performer he is. Mabrey made seven out of eight free throws as he started driving to the basket and finally by the fourth quarter the referees had been provided whistles which they started using. After only calling three fouls the first 20 minutes they made 16 the last twelve. The Gryphons were 10 for 12 for the game while Northern was 8 out of 11.

Once again tonight the intense Gryphon pressure wilted Northern in the four quarter and the trio of guards were lead by Bill Young who took his turn at being too quick for Guilford. Detrail Jenkins had a double double 12 point and 12 rebounds.

The bottom line tonight, team defense pulls this one out and Rocky Mount will play North East Guilford a 83-82 overtime winner over once beaten South Central. Northeast Guilford is now 19-10 on the year and are the only road block left for the Gryphon nation to play in Chapel Hill on March 13th.

******If you haven't heard the 3-A Eastern finals have been moved to 1.00pm Saturday. This is due to the 2-A Semi final game which has been pushed to Friday at 5.30 over Tuesday night of the snow out. In order to give the winner of the 2-A a little more rest the 3-A/2-A games are flip flopping. Gryphon PLAY AT 1.00pm.

You can be proud to be a GRYPHON tonight !

East Regional Begins Tonight

There was doubt whether the east regional would wait another day until near noon today before the officials deemed the roads safe to let teams travel to their perspective regional games. It wasn't so much getting there but what happens tonight when teams who have traveled 100 miles or more head home with possible black ice on the roads.

Now a day behind instead of two games Wednesday and Thursday the Tuesday games missed out by the weather yesterday will be made up at 5.00pm, one on Wednesday and one on Thursday. Rocky Mount will still play at 7.00pm Thursday but there will be a game in progress if you are planning to attend the games.

There will be no live radio of the game but the "Stretchlon Sports Show" will be there taping the game and hopefully Saturday also. Should Rocky Mount win Thursday the game Saturday will be played back Sunday night on WHIG at 8.00pm.

If you are staying home "The Rocky Mount Telegram" will blog live from the game so that is about as live as you are going to get for the playoffs. Wes Bradshaw like during football season will be updating NC Preps so there is two as live as you are going to get sources.

Girls soccer opened their season with a 2-0 win at D H Conley. They are home Thursday at 4.00pm meeting C B Aycock. Girls softball season starts Thursday as the Lady Gryphon softball team will host Tarboro at "Mutt" Wilson Park at 4.00pm. Baseball kicks it season off Friday when they travel to Riverside and then Saturday meet Aubrey Kell in the Baseball classic at the USA Baseball complex in Cary.

HOW bout those Heels! 2,000 wins in 100 years. If you are a non math major that's 20 wins a year.

I tried Tuesday night to watch a replay of the defensive backs combine workouts and saw Stephan Virgil several times still in his warmups. The replay was 3 hours and 43 minutes long and I just didn't have enough time to see him during his combine workouts. I think he was right in the middle. All the reports I have seen are talking about the DB's who were great or terrible and he was not in either category.

When the NFL draft comes up at the end of April look for the former Gryphon to go in the 4th or 5th round.

I will not blog Thursday until after the basketball game in Greenville so it will probably be 11.00pm before I have a story up on the blog. I have to be in Richmond at 8.00am Friday so I will not hang around Minges Thursday night to see who we might play if we win Thursday night.

Expections Are High

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The weather has gotten today's baseball game with Rose. The game has been rescheduled for March 18th.
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If the weather holds off Rocky Mount high school baseball will start the 2010 schedule today hosting Rose. The Gryphons are Pre-season #1 state wide in just about all the polls based on the return of their pitching. Hobbs Johnson and Benton Moss. Johnson already inked with Carolina for next year and Moss waiting for his senior year before his signature sends him to Chapel Hill.

Northern Nash found out last year during the regional that you never have enough pitching and the progress of who becomes the #3 and #4 reliable pitchers will be a key to this teams success. If their was a failure last year it was timely hitting and question marks abound.

Kent Cox who takes over for legend Pat Smith has a load on his shoulders already with the high expectations. This week they start out with Rose and defending 4-A champions Aubrey Kell. The Gryphons could easliy start out 0-2.

Softball has already moved today's home game to Thursday. Boys tennis begins it's season Wednesday weather permitting.

If we are going to get the snow in eastern North Carolina today that the weatherman says we might. Then the basketball regional might wind up doubling up later in the week. We will worry with that when we know for sure.

I hear that WRMT is working on doing the games on radio and I know WHIG-TV is taping the Rocky Mount game for showing on the "Stretchlon Sports Show" Sunday night.

I hope you read Nick Phillps blog Thoughts from out of my head. His blog Sunday talking about winning is not everything is great. I need to add Nick's blog to my list at the bottom of this page so it would be easy for you to access.

I did not get a chance to see the overtime Sunday night but I thought the Canada-USA hockey game was one of the best ever. I went to church Sunday night and missed over time.

34% of American homes were tuned in to the Super bowl but Sunday 80% all all Canadian TVs were watching the hockey. You think they like hockey in Canada. What else is there to do there this time of year?T

Regional Press Conferences Today

If you need Mike Gainey today and need to talk Rocky Mount high sports business you will need to see him in Greenville attending the Regional informational meeting. Typical information for the teams, which door to enter that kind of stuff as well as the media gets a chance to talk to all the coaches involved. There is always excitement any time your team progresses this far but Mike should be an old hand at all the hoopla this week. This is his third trip to Greenville and the regional in the last nine years.

Girls soccer begins today at D H Conley. baseball and softball begin Tuesday at home both at 4.00pm.

Stephan Virgil is at the NFL conbines in Indianapolis and today begins the physical side of the things. Today is weight lifting to find out how strong you are and tomorrow the forty yard dash and agility drills. Sunday all the teams got to interview the future NFL players.

Last night on the "Stretchlon Sports Show" on WHIG-TV Martin Fleming who is the authority in eastern North Carolina on high school wrestling announced his All Area team. Chandler Phillips at 135 pounds and J K Williamson at 171 made it from Rocky Mount. Freshman Mason Holt made honorable mention.

Joe Young from Northern Nash also made the team and I would like to congratulate Joe on finishing 5th in the state this weekend. He was the top finisher in the state who went to Greensboro from our area. Joe and Tavis Richardson from Northern were also on the all area team.

Martin was calling the all area team out so fast toward the end of the show that I couldn't write fast enough. A replay of the show will be on at 5.00pm today on WHIG-TV. You know making the all area team covers more territory than the all area team when the Rocky Mount Telegram announces it winter sports all area team. The news paper is for it's coverage area while Martin's area is pretty much northeastern North Carolina from Raleigh to the coast and Kinston to the Virginia line.

College baseball this weekend Campbell took two out of three from NCA&T. Northern's Bryan Braswell continues to knock the cover off the ball.Braswell was 3 for 5 and 5 rbi's in the three game series. Nash Central's Xavier Macklin for the Aggies had three hits over the series and Rocky Mount's Ben Fish had an inning behind the plate in one of the games. Alex Pearce the former Bulldog from Nash Central has four RBI's so far this season for UNC-Pembroke.

ECU took 2 out 3 from South Carolina. They are 4-3 on the season but 6 of their games have been against top 15 teams. State and UNC have lost only once each. Sure does look like Brian Goodwin has his feet on the ground now for the Tar Heels. Last week he started out his college career going zero for nine but now is 7 for his last 17. He has a homer, two triples, two doubles. He is second on the team in RBI's and leads the team in total bases.

Regional Is Set

Monday is always media day for the regional basketball in Greenville and Wes Bradshaw is going to represent us and get us our press passes for the week long regional to be held in Greenville. You will see interviews on the locals TV stations like 7 and 9 during the week which they will actually get on Monday.

Rocky Mount after the reseeding plays 25-2 North Guilford. I doesn’t really matter to me who they play because in order to advance any further the Gryphons will have to play better than they did Friday and I thought they played great. There is an old farmers saying that from here on out who ever they play they are in the tall cotton.

Tip time is 7.00pm Thursday

Heart break for the fighting Bishops of NC Wesleyan who had won the regular season championship and as the #1 seed played Christopher Newport today in the conference finals at Newport’s home court and lost. 67-63. The loss knocks the Fighting Bishops out of the NCAA Div III basketball tournament.

Nash County sent 11 wrestlers to the state championship in Greensboro on Friday. Southern Nash sent Buddy Jones who wrestled at 125 pounds, Steven Morgan at 135. Nash Central two wrestlers and they were Josh Taylor at 105 and Jacob Robinson at 135. Rocky Mount was represented by Chandler Phillips in the 135 pound class and Janicento Williamsonat 171. Big East conference champion Northern Nash had the most wrestlers with five. Tavis Richardson 145 pounds, Kris Horton 160, Bryant Sweet 171, Danzel Perry at 189 and Joe Young wrestled at 215.

I have had a hard time getting on the NCHSAA website to the wrestling brackets but the only locaL wrestler to make it to the quarter finals was Northern’s Joe Young. I am sure it is all over by now but it has be very frustrating when you click on the brackets and nothing appears for five minutes. I am sure with all the people trying to get on the site plus thee NCHSAA updating it ever so often it has been for every one.

Brian Goodwin hit his first college home run Saturday in Carolina’s first loss of the season. N C State beat Cal(Irvine )Yesterday the #3 team in the country and beat James Madison today. ECU got ninth inning heroics to beat South Carolina Saturday 4-3 after losing the opener yesterday. While I was at the playoff basketball game Friday night wife Pat went out with a friend Debbie to Mario’s and Billy Godwin was there e having dinner.

Finally , I have never been a Danica Patrick fan. She has never shown me to be much of a driver when she was in Indy Car racing. Saturday during the race at Las Vegas in the Saturday division of NASCAR Patrick crashed and promptly got out of the car and blamed the other guy. It is clear to me that Patrick is a pretty face that can sell spark plugs but she needs to go to Kenly on a Saturday night and learn to drive in the push and shove division before she gets killed or kill someone else.

Gryphons Sprint To Regionals

THE NCHSAA HAS RESEEDED THE EAST REGIONAL AND THE GRYPHONS PLAY NORTH GUILFORD AT 7.00PM THURSDAY NIGHT AT MINGES AT WILLIAMS ARENA AT ECU

I mentioned when talking about Wednesday's victory over West Craven that one of the Assistant coaches had said walking off the court the the Gryphons were too quick and long. Well, Friday night that was apparent again as the Gryphons were able to come up with rebounds on the third attempt while C B Aycock would still be finishing their second jump at the rebound.

A major improvement in this years team is their ball handling and again tonight the play of Darius McKnight,Kenyatta Bullock and William Young lead the Gryphons. The turnover match up wound up 15 a piece in the game but with two minutes to go in the third quarter the Gryphons had committed only five. By that point in the game the Gryphons had control.

Darius McKnight lead the way for the Gryphons being one of five double digit scorers with 15 points and also showed that rebounding quickness with eleven rebounds. Detrail Jenkins was also a double double man with eleven points and twelve rebounds. The Gryphons win going away despite Tashawn Mabry sitting more than he wanted to with foul trouble but in limited play Tashawn gets seventeen points points and nine rebounds. William Young and Terrell Hilliard were double digit scorers from off the bench with eleven and ten points.

Mike Gainey earns his third trip to Greenville and the regional for the third time in nine years. The Gryphons will be matched up against South Central who beat Fike 77-57 and are sporting a 27-1 record. The other regional semi final will send two Mid Piedmont conference teams against each other as NE Guilford beat Southern Lee 60-50 and Northern Guilford edged Westover 59-58.

The 3-A regional is Thursday night and who plays in the early game or late game is not yet announced but with two teams from the same conference matched up in one game I can't see that game being the feature 8.30 game Thursday night. South Central being a local Greenville team and Rocky Mount from just down the road I would suspect you are going to have to be there before the first game starts if you want a seat in the 8,000 seat Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum.

According to the NCHSAA website the matchups may be reseeded today and Rocky Mount very well may get one of the Guilford county schools in the Thursday game.

The lone Big East girls team finished their season last night losing to South Central 66-35. The Girls regional at Rose High school will feature two conference matchups. South Central and Havelock from the Coastal and Westover and Union Pines from the Cape Fear Valley tangle.

Regional Up For Grabs

Tonight is the sectional finals in 3-A basketball as Mike Gainey will try to get his Gryphon team to the regional for the 3rd time in his coaching career. No final is easy and tonight will be no different as C B Aycock will bring a 24-3 record to town. Wednesday nights win was #20 for the Gryphons this season and they have also lost three times. This for sure is the last home game of the season for after tonight there is only the Eastern Regional and the State championships left

If you want to see what the baseball team has, they have a home practice game today at 4.00pm. Returning the top two pitchers from last year Hobbs Johnson who has signed to play with Carolina in 2011 and rising Junior Benton Moss who has verbally committed to Carolina high hopes abound on the Gryphon diamond.

The Rocky Mount Junior Legion team last summer finished 3rd in the state tournament. There is hope that the holes created with the graduation of the big three of Brian Goodwin, Ben Fish and Dillon Cockrell can be made without much drop off in the offense. We will see. Brand new coach Kent Cox will have big shoes to fill in replacing Pat Smith who brought a baseball state title to Rocky Mount in 08.

Wes Bradshaw gave me a heads up on this and Tuesday when I got home from work I saw it on TV myself. Former Northern Nash basketball player Michael Deloatch and now a senior guard for Norfolk State Spartans made the ESPN plays of the day. In fact it was #3. Deloatch stole a pass near his foul line and streaked to the goal where when he reached the other foul line bounced the ball hard off the floor to make it fly up in the air where he picked it off for a slam dunk. It could have easily been the play of the day.

You know in the last ten years Nash County has become a hot bed for baseball and we now have many college players from this area. Former Northern catcher Bryan Braswell who is the starting behind the plate for Campbell got two hits and drove in two runs in helping the Fighting Camels of Buies Creek take the Wolfpack to extra innings on Tuesday. There are so many players from this area playing college baseball it is hard to keep up with all of them.

I don't know whether you saw this on WRAL-TV last night but the CIAA basketball tournament is underway in Charlotte. Ken Smith of Channel five did a sports report on Chowan College from Murfreesboro who having Joined the CIAA this year is taking part in their first tournament. They have come a long way since 1994 when they first started playing division 3 basketball over being a junior college. My last year as play by play voice of Chowan was 1993 their last year playing as a junior college.

I actually did one game for Chowan in 1994 when they came to Methodest college in Fayetteville. Pat had been transferred by Carolina Telephone back then and we were living there. Bob Burke coach at Chowan brought the radio equipment on the vans with the team and I did the game. Afterwards loaded the equipment back on the van for the trip back while I stayed in Fayetteville.