Price Sisters Playing On Saturday

Four Nash Central girls headed to Burlington and one from Rocky Mount as Friday was the round of 16 and quarter final round of the 3-A girls tennis.  Rocky Mount's Mackenzie Warner the lone player taking part in the singles was ousted in her opening match by Mari Fujino of Northern Guilford by a score of 6-1-6-1

All four girls from Nash Central were playing doubles and  a #4 seed the team of Dana Kelly and Caley Bass fell in their first match to a team from Burlington Williams(Edathil-Brooks) by a score 6-3, 6-4.  Now for the #1 seeds from the East Randi and Kaley Price.  Their  opening match of the day they lost the first set to a team from Raleigh's Cardinal Gibbons High of (Knors and Freeman) by a score of 5-7.  The second set was win or the dream ends and the Price sisters were able to take the second set 6-3.  Now the big set and neither team felt like heading home so early in the day but  by game 17 the Price sisters prevailed 10-7.

The Price sisters met up with another set of sisters in the Kesslers from CharlotteCatholic who had won their first match in two straight sets.  Were the Price sisters tired after having to fight for their life to make  it to the second round?  They must not have been as they win the quarter finals in two straight games 6-4,6-0.

The Price sisters are in the final four and Saturday morning they face a team of  Brooker and Smith from Cardinal Gibbons.  Should they win they play for the Stae 3-A double title in Tennis Saturday afternoon.  YOU GO GIRLS!

Oh yeah, now the football:

Hunt was voted by the coaches the preseason favorite in the Big East and Randy Raper's squad did not let down those that voted for them.  Hunt broke a 14-14 second half tie with Fike to win the Big East Regular season championship by a 28-14 score. The Warriors finish a perfect regular season at 10-0  Now that the high school playoffs have this pod system don't be shocked that Hunt has to play Southern Nash in the opening round of the 3-AA playoffs.  They will have to win the Big East a second time as they probably will play Southern Nash and Nash Central by the end of the third round

Nash Central did all they could do beat Southern Nash 34-14 and hope for help from Fike which was not coming but the Bulldogs grab second in the Big East .  Fike's  lost to Hunt was their second in conference play but they will finish 3rd at 3-2 in the conference.  Southern Nash after scoring almost 100 points the first two games of the season finish up conference play at 2-3 and 7-3 over all.

The game that nobody cared about except the two teams that play in it.  Northern Nash double their wins on the season as the offense scored four times as the Knights beat Rocky Mount 28-0.  Northern season is probably over going 2-8 while a 3-6-1 Rocky Mount  will more than likely play somewhere next week in the 3-A and they will be joined by Fike(4-6) in the 3-A playoffs.  Hunt, Nash Central and Southern Nash will more than likely all be in 3-AA.

Soooo Many Possibilities

We head to the last regular season game  of high school football and there is not one position from first to last in Biast Football that that is written in stone.

Hunt heads to Fike for the final game of the year with an unbeaten season on the line and they are the only team that controls their own destiny.  If they beat Fike they are unbeaten at 6-0 and 10-0 on the season.  They would be the champs.  If they lose to Fike then we must wait and see where all the other Dominoes fall.

A Fike win would get the Golden Demons to 5-5 on the season but where it counts most 4-1 in league play. Hunt and Fike met earlier this year and Hunt won 21-0 at Hunt in a non conference affair.  Since the championship is on the line for both I would suspect that most of Wilson County will be in attendance.

Nash Central still with smoke coming out of their ears after what they called a poorly officiated game against Hunt must now worry about Southern Nash.  What happen last week is history and they only thing they control now is how they play this Friday. A victory by the Bulldogs and you know they text messages will be going back and forth on the Hunt-Fike score. A loss and they hit the road in the playoff maybe as a fourth seed.  If Fike wins, Nash Central wins then a three way tie for first occurs and somebody owning a share of first will start out on the road in the first round of the playoffs.

Southern Nash knows for sure they can't win the championship but they can still finish in a tie for second.  If Hunt beats Fike, Southern beats Nash Central then Hunt wins the league by two games and a three way tie for second and here we go again with the tie breaker.

If a three way tie for first happens then any of the three could get the #1 seed or 2 or third seed. If a three way tie for second you could be second right on down to 4th depending on the tie breaker.

From what we think we know is that Rocky Mount will be the only Big East team classified as 3-A everyone else is going to be 3-AA.  If that is the case then Rocky Mount is probably in the playoffs win or lose Friday night.  A Northern wins would only be their second on the season  and if they are in the 3-AA, 2-8 might not get in where 4-5-1 or 3-6-1 which Rocky Mount could finish with will probably be needed to fill in in the lower seeding in the 3-A playoff.

By this time Friday night the pieces will start to fall in place.

Warriors-Firebirds Collide in Soccer Final

Thursday night the Hunt Warriors go for and undefeated regular season, undefeated conference regular season and sweep through the conference tournament unbeaten(two games.)  The only team that prevents them from meeting that goal is the Firebirds of Southern Nash.  Championship game is Thursday night at 7pm at Hunt.

The brackets are out in the State Championships in tennis and Rocky Mount's Mackenzie Warner who is a #4 seed from the East Regional.  She will take on Mari Fujino of Northern Guilford who was a Regional   and a #1 seed..  It takes four matches to win the State Singles title.

Nash Central will send  two doubles tennis to Burlington as the Price Sisters Randi and Kaley the # 1 Regional winners from the East will play Devin Knors-Natalie Freemna #4 four seed from Cardinal Gibbons in Raleigh.  The Lady Bulldog doubles team of Dana Kelly and Caley Bass will represent the East as a #4.
seed  and they will play the team of Roshaly Edathi-Sydney Brooks who will be playing near home as a #1 seed as they are from Burlington Williams.

Looking to next week when the team competition returns Nash Central will host Rocky Mount on Monday in the sectional finals.  Regardless of who wins they would travel on November second to the Burlington Williams/Cardinal Gibbons winner as either of those two conferences have the seeding over either Big East team.  The team State Championship is Saturday November 5th.

It told you all along that Big East Volleyball didn't drink the right kind of water to have volleyball players. Just to show you of how the Big East compares with everyone else in the east the four teams that swept all four of our teams last week were swept themselves yesterday by a combined 12-1 in games.  3-0,3-0,3-0 3-1.  The four Big East schools lost last week by a combined 12-4 score .

Saturday is the Regional Cross Country for the 3-A Fike is the host school and they will run at Gillette Park. Rocky Mount Boys have a shot of making the State Finals.  Fike girls  also the conference champions of the Big East will be running on their home course.  I'm unsure right now who Else made it from the Big East.

I'll be doing the last football game ever at the RMAC Thursday night at Northern Nash JVs play the little Gryphons.  The final regular season night of high school football is scheduled for Friday night but I hear rain is on the way.  If I was Rocky Mount I would play in the rain.  They are they highest scoring team in the state while it's raining.  It hasn't rained in six weeks unfortunately.
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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.