Northern Durham Clobbers Gryphons

A once proud football program who has not won in over a year on a football field will ride back to Durham tonight no longer a losing program. Northern Durham dominates Rocky Mount 39-14.

The Gryphons took the opening kickoff and were sailing down the field until a helmet tackle on the ball caused a Gryphon fumble and Northern preceded to march down the field running and passing to take a 7-0 lead.

Rocky Mount responded with their best drive of the night to tie the game on a 22 yard pass from Tevin Taylor to Damien Srtickland. Fernando Alfaro extra point tied the score with 3.24 to play in the first quarter. That is as close as Rocky Mount would come to see the lead. Northern Scored again before the end of the quarter and added one more score in the second to lead 20-7 at the half

Like last week against Bertie the Knights dominated the first half but instead of 13-0 Rocky Mount they trailed by 13. Rocky Mount came out of the third quarter and on their first drive drove the field and it was capped off by a 14 yard td run by Rodquez Greene to make it 20-14.

In every game there is a turning point and tonight moving down field and under extreme pressure looking as if they might take the lead Rocky Mount threw away a ball when it looked as if the quarter back might be sacked but instead the ball was intercepted and returned 52 yard for a Northern touchdown.

Still twice more Rocky Mount has a first down at the Northern 21 and again a first down at the 18 but failed to score. Northern Durham smelling victory took advantage of four Gryphon interceptions two of them in the fourth quarter and Northern Durham looking like Northern Durham of the past whips the Gryphons 39-14.

The news is much better in soccer as Rocky Mount took on Jacksonville the team that knocked them out of the third round of the playoffs last year and played the Cardinals straight up and to 0-0 tie. Coach Drew Nix played a defensive game keeping more people on defense to hold down the powerful Jacksonville team and it worked shutting out the Cardinals. The sacrifice you make with more on defense is you get very few offensive chances. All in all Gryphon soccer plays one of the big boys in North Carolina High School soccer to a draw.

Gryphon Football Moved To Saturday 6.00pm

Last year during the opening comments of the season on the radio a clap of thunder and a bolt of lightening struck Near Durham County Stadium and before our broadcast is off and running the game was moved to Saturday.

Fast forward to tonight at 5.30 the thunder and lightening starts and the game is moved even before I can get to the stadium. Are we going through with Northern Durham what we go through with SouthWest Edgecombe? We can only play ND on Saturday much like it seems we can only play SWE on Monday's. Last year the Monday streak was broken.

Remember 6.00pm Saturday night and yes this being one of only four home regular season games the Gryphons need every dollar that they can get into the gate.

Soccer has made up ground on their opening day lost that occurred to Roanoke Rapids. Earlier this week they got revenge on RR winning there 5-1 and last night they beat Knightdale 5-1. Saturday morning they take part in one of the best soccer events held in the state each year at Wilson in the Brittany. Jacksonville the team that knocked the Gryphons out of the third round of the playoffs last year will be their foe and this has the makings of an outstanding game.

Volley Ball beat RR last night 3-1 to go to 4-1 on the young season. Tennis has yet to lose in two matches and have won 16 of the 18 games played. I think it is too early to get too excited about how good tennis might be but they just might be real good. Cross Country runs Saturday morning in an event in Wendell.

The fallout that is happening at North Carolina over players having people write papers that they turn in gives me no excitement at all that Carolina will now go in the dumpster in football. I hope you don't think it doesn't go on every where and even at your school you support. In fact ECU baseball in the middle of the year last season lost several players over the same issue.

Our society is such that if there is a profit to be made then someone will, whether it's the person who sells the papers or the person who benefits from not having to spend time to write the paper.

Day Two Of school-Week Two Of Football

Last week was Endowment games which are for varsity football only. This week the JVs can begin their seasons and tonight they will. Rocky Mount is on the road to Northern Durham, Nash Central is home to Smithfield Selma and Northern Nash is home to the IMPs of Cary High School. Southern Nash will host Bunn.

That in turn brings us to the second week of varsity football. Rocky Mount who maybe surprised people last week against Bertie will play their first home game of the season against a school that is going through a period that no team wants to do. Rebuild, win less last season and last week was not very good for Northern Durham. Four home games on tap this season Friday will be one of the few opportunities to see the Gryphons in action without travel.

Rocky Mount 34 Northern Durham 14

Northern Nash has a winning record for the first time in a long while at any time during the season. Trying to build on that record will be difficult as they travel to Cary. Scoring at least twenty points last week is very good news for the Knights and they will need another twenty point effort in this one. I don't think the Knights get it done but it will be close.

Cary 21 Northern Nash 14

Nash Central failed to score last week against Tarboro. That's not all bad. Friday they travel to Smithfield Selma where they will not only try for their first win but their first points of the season. Nash Central will score but not enough.

SSS 27 Nash Central 20

Southern Nash will hit the road for their second of three straight games on the road to start the season. They will venture to Bunn who I think during the next high school realignment will become a member of the Big East. Bunn regardless of the size of the school Bunn is a football school and those people live football. This will give the Firebirds a real vision on how good they really are.

Southern Nash 35 Bunn 20

Hunt rides into downtown Wilson Friday playing Fike in a non conference game. Fike scored the speed limit on D H Conley last week but they will probably find it hard to score this week because of the speed bump called Hunt.

Hunt 35 Fike 13



Volleyball travels to Double R (Roanoke Rapids)today in non conference action. This weekend soccer takes part in the Brittany in Wilson and cross country runs Saturday in a event in Wendell.

Long Ride-Worth While

Monday the Lady Gryphon Tennis team traveled to Coinjock to take on the Currituck in tennis. Those of you that remember when Northeastern use to be in the same conference as Rocky Mount that it took forever to just get to Northeastern High School which by the way is located on this side of Elizabeth City. Coinjock is all the way through Elizabeth City past Camden and then another twenty miles.

If you are going all that way to play tennis when you get there you might as well make it worth the ride and the Lady Gryphon Tennis team did scalping Currituck 9-0. That helped with the long ride home.

Today soccer travels to Roanoke Rapids.

Today is the first day of school and I see that during an NFL game this past weekend Chad Ochocinco was fined by the NFL for tweeting while the game was in progress. That makes me wonder, of the 1250 students heading to Rocky Mount High today-How many will text during class. Probably more than we all wish to know.

NFL training camps are in full swing heading to the first game of their season on September 12th. I go on the Dallas Cowboy site ever so often to see the latest news on Terrell Hudgins as he tries to make the Dallas Cowboys as a wide receiver. Yesterday on Dallas Cowboys .com there is a feature on Terrell call Getting to know Terrell Hudgins.

The article interviews Terrell laying out his problems trying to make the Cowboys. We have talked on this site of the numbers game in which Terrell is faced with at wide receiver for Dallas. My question is why in the world would they do an article on a rookie who might not be on the team two weeks from now. This gives me hope that Terrell just might make the team on special teams.

The comment section after the article where Cowboy fans give their five cents worth is running 90% in favor of the Cowboys keeping Terrell. It seems that Terrell has made an impression in Dallas(Oxnard California) Dallas's training facility on both the media and the fans. Let's just hope Jerry Jones has that same impression too.

Cross Countty Off and running

The Gryphon cross country team traveled to Roanoke Rapids on Monday and came home winners. The girls took part in a run against Roanoke Rapid girls only and won 17-39. Freshman Kaitlyn Jacob won the race for the Gryphon Ladies.

The boys ran against not only RR but Southern Nash boys ran as well and the Gryphon boys teams came home first winning by a score of 29 for the Gryphons, 46 for Southern Nash and the home team Roanoke Rapids had 52. Gryphon sophomore Mason Holt finished second for the Gryphons.

Those of you ECU Pirate football fans, the Pirates held a scrimmage on Saturday as they prepare for the 2010 football season. Former Gryphon Jacobi Jenkins who will play this season as a redshirt sophomore intercepted a pass and returned it 31 yards.

Jenkins was on the offense last season where he caught a couple of passes and now seems destined for the defense. I think that tells you what a good athlete he is when each side of the ball wants him.

I had heard a rumor all summer that Tashawn Mabry was not going to Rhode Island to play basketball as planned but I had an opportunity to talk with his mother last week during a Volley Ball match at Rocky Mount. TaShawn has just return from Rhode Island where he attended the second semester of summer school there and is scheduled to leave this week to enter fall classes.

We will get an opportunity to see many of his games on TV as Rhode Island plays on the ESPN group of networks at least ten times this season.

Saturday night I looked at the Dallas-San Diego game on the NFL Network game tracker. Terrell Hudgin of Rocky Mount did not catch a pass in this game. Yesterday I was on the Dallas website and if you remember last week I said that Dallas had nine wide receivers on their roster and on their depth chart they listed only five. Yesterday former Carolina wide receiver Jessie Holley was listed as the third string backup giving three players at both sides of wide receiver. High priced rookie Dez Bryant which you would think would make him the Cowboy seventh receiver was not listed on the three deep chart.

Dallas still list 79 players on their roster and they must be down to 53 by September 7th. Seven players can be listed as taxi squad which means they run the plays of the other team during practice. the NFL is a numbers game and with two pre season games left the numbers don't seem to be adding up for Terrell.

Game two of the high school football season is Friday night which is the home opener for the Gryphons as they will host Northern Durham. One area of improvement needed this week is the defense getting off the field faster. The first half against Bertie the Falcons ran 33 plays to 17 for the Gryphons despite Rocky Mount leading 13-0. The second half the defense got off the field quickly causing five fumbles. The defense threw a shutout on the Falcons but the offense gave up a touchdown.

Big Start For Big East Football

The opening weekend of Big East football was a good one as five of the six teams came home winners. I don't think anybody can make a judgement about their teams future after just one game because only one team played a game against a team that went deep into the playoffs last year, that was Nash Central and they lost.

Rocky Mount had better get use to the road as they were able to win at Bertie. Timing of when you play someone is a factor most people forget. Bertie playing for new coach Greg Watford will be a tough game for someone by week eight.

Northern Nash roared from the opening kickoff Friday night against Beddingifeld. The biggest obstacle for Northern this year is keeping every game in prospective. I bet many fans at Northern thought somewhere in the fourth quarter "oh no here we go again". Don't worry Knight fans your offense is better this year since in a long while. Can you count the number of games because Northern couldn't score in the second half of games that they lost in the past few years? Northern put 21 on the scoreboard but should of had a lot more.

Nash Central is the only conference team with a L by their record after the first week. No shame in being beaten by Tarboro the defending 2-A champs. The Bulldogs are better than the score that finished up on the scoreboard. It is a fact however it is hard to win when you don't score.

Southern Nash put up 55 on Franklinton which should have the coaching staff giddy. They also gave up 27 which gives the coaches something to holler about on Monday. Southern was the preseason pick to win the Big East and their play Friday night did nothing to make that pick look bad. Defense will get a lot of attention this week.

Fike opens the season putting up 50 plus points on D H Conley. Remember this is the D H Conley who didn't win a game last year. Doesn't look like they will win many this year either. Fike gets a win but will need another game under their belt to see where they are this year.

Hunt scores a 29-0 victory over Eastern Wayne giving the conference a shutout in week one. If Hunt can score points with their running game and hold on defense they will be right in the Hunt excuse the pun for the championship.

There are times in our life that sports need to take a back seat when we look at the real world. I have good news to report this morning and we hope this comes true. Lady Gryphon soccer goalie Holly Fryer under went major surgery last Tuesday at UNC Hospitals and word is she will be coming home today. Our prayers are with Holly and her family as she starts the road to recovery.

Volley Ball Wins Nash County Tournament

Thursday night as the Lady Gryphon Volley ball team walked off the court having just lost 3-0 to South Central there was a feel that Volley ball had stood toe to toe with South Central and even though they lost there was this feeling that Lady Gryphon Volley ball could play with anybody in the east.

Today during the Nash County Volleyball Tournament the Lady Gryphons found out that nobody else cares that you think you might be good. Rocky Mount opened play Saturday morning against Southern Nash and quickly won the first game 25-10. Game two Southern had a much better game and lost to the Lady Gryphons 25-21. Disliking being down two games to none Southern scored the first eight points in game three and never looked back downing Rocky Mount 25-12. A new attitude was in the Lady Gryphon camp as Rocky Mount dispensed Southern in Game four 25-7 to move on to the championship match.

Game two Host Northern Nash and Nash Central decided to give the fans in attendance their monies worth as Nash Central won game one 25-8 but the next four games went to the wire. Northern won game two 25-21 Nash Central won game three 25-21. Just to survive Northern won game four 25-22 and set up the tie breaker in which the home standing Lady Knights won 15-11 to advance to the finals to take on the Lady Gryphons.

The third place match was won by Nash Central in four games 25-15,19-25,25-15 and the fourth game went extra time using a soccer term with Nash Central winning 28-26.

The championship game Rocky Mount roared out of the gate but by the end of game one Northern Nash had trimmed the final score to 25-18. Rocky Mount started strong again but midway through game two Northern hit a spell where they were in complete control winning game two 25-17. Northern hopped right out of the gate and had a big lead in game three before Rocky Mount steadied themselves but Northern took game three 25-19. Game four Rocky Mount lead early and held on from the rally that Northern made in game four but Rocky Mount evened the match winning 25-18.

This set up the fifth game winner take all and Rocky Mount settled in from the get go and beats Northern with a 15-9 fifth game win to take home the title.

Several players had outstanding games but for Rocky Mount in the championship match Brittany Battle had a string of serve points and she was the best player at the net.

There was no all tournament team picked but if there was my picks would be Logan Mcninch of Southern, Brittany Faulkner and Kadeisha Perry from Nash Central. Northern's reps would be Camille Branch, Kristin Ruffin and Haley Claytor. Lauren Campbell, Tia Hudgins and the MVP Brittany Battle would make it for Rocky Mount. This is not official just who I would have picked.