Big East Tennis Sailing

The Big East #1 seed Unbeaten Nash Central will remain unbeaten as they made the long trek to Southport today to take on South Brunswick in the second round of the 3-A tennis playoffs. SB the #1 Seed from the Waccamaw Conference found it not necessary to even play the doubles as the Lady Bulldogs found victim #17 on the season routing SB 6-0

The Lady Bulldogs will host their third round match as they are the higher seeded team and their opponent will be the Lady Gryphons of Rocky Mount.  It was not as easy for them taking on the #2 seed from the Eastern Carolina Conference but Eastern  Wayne falls to the Gryphons 6-3.  Round three will be played next Tuesday at the tennis courts at Nash Central as we know now that the Big East will have a team in the fourth round.  Nash Central will host at 17-0 while Rocky Mount is up to 12-6.

The Hunt Warriors won their 20th straight game tonight in the semi finals of the Big East Soccer tournament as they beat the #4 seed Rocky Mount 4-1.  Hunt dominated the shots in the first half but could only muster a 1-0 lead on a penalty kick  goal by Sam Hoeferkamp at the 13.44 mark of the first half.

Rocky Mount was able to tie the game at the 27.40 mark of the second half on a Paul Lilley goal.  Tied 1-1 Hunt woke up and within three minutes scored twice to jump to a 3-1.  7.27 left to play Eric O'Brien  salted the game away with his second straight goal to finish the scoring at 4-1.

In a really great gesture by Trent Dourough the head coach of the Hunt Warriors he had a photo taken with three Rocky Mount players Drew Gorham, Paul Lilley and Lee McAvoy who all three have played for Dorough in travel league ball.  It just goes to prove it is not all about winning.

Have you ever had a day at work and you think that the day has been pretty good only to find out a disaster has occurred and the day is not as good as you thought.  Tonight I did the game for the Stretchlon Sports Show and even on this blog I had said Hunt was 24-0 on the season.  Interviewing Coach Trent Dorough for TV after the game Tom Ham of the Wilson Times was listening waiting his turn to interview Coach Dorough after me.  Tom and I walked out to our cars together and Tom ask me whether I could edit  as he told me that was Hunt's 20th straight win not 25 as I proclaimed  throughout the broadcast. I probably said it at least 10 times.

Some days are better than others and for me this was a not so good a day.  The game will broadcast Sunday night at 8pm on WHIGTV.

Hunt Goes for 25th

Tonight in the quarter finals of the Big East Soccer tournament Rocky Mount beat Northern Nash  2-0 to advance to the semi finals in soccer.  The victory insures the #4 seed from the Big East to the Gryphons and the loss ends the Knight's season.

This is also the last time that Rocky Mount will every play a soccer game on the campus at the Old Rocky Mount High as next year they will have lights on the new soccer field and will no longer have to move playoff games to the sports complex or even to the Rocky Mount football stadium that happen three years ago or so.  The State would like for all soccer playoff games to be play at 6.00pm or 7pm but without lights they had to move several games away from their home field to meet the State requirement.

Rocky Mount meets Hunt at Hunt starting at 7.00pm Tuesday night.  During the regular season Hunt won at Hunt 8-0 but the Gryphons gave them a tussle in Rocky Mount before losing 1-0.

Hunt heads into the semi finals 24-0 and if they win Tuesday host the Conference Champion Wednesday also so there is a really good chance they could be heading  into the playoffs next week 26-0.  I would guess Hunt will be leading the Big East in the Wells Fargo Cup which was formally the Wachovia Cup for having the best overall athletic program in the conference.  They will be hard to beat if Football finishes undefeated and Volleyball and tennis both finished in third spot in the conference.


I hope you have seen Charles Alston's Gryphon Grapevine talking about the most exciting games to occur at the  Rocky Mount Athletic Complex the home of Rocky Mount High School football.  Even though I did not attend that night to me the greatest thing to happen there was the Beach Boys performing for all the Centura Employees.  Since I wasn't there I don't know what the reason was but to me that was a cool event. I wonder if someone can get these old timers to come play at the RMAC the Eagles or Chicago.

There is one more football game left to play and that is Thursday night as Northern's JVs take on Rocky Mount Thursday night at 7.00pm.  Then it is adios RMAC.

Round two of the Girls Tennis 3-A Duel team  playoffs resume Tuesday as #2 seed Rocky Mount from the Big East travels to the #2 seed from the Eastern Carolina Eastern Wayne.  Unbeaten Nash Central heads to Southport to take on the #1 seed from the Waccamaw Conference South Brunswick.  If both of the Big East teams prevail they would collide next Tuesday in the third round at Nash Central.  If Nash Central wins they are home whether they play South Brunswick or Rocky Mount.