Brice Sister Make Final Four In Tennis

The Rocky Mount High sister team of Chandler (Sophomore) and Tanner (Senior) have advanced to the semi finals of the state doubles tennis championships in Burlington. They beat a team from East Gaston 6-4-6-3 to advance to the quarter finals beating a team from Terry Sanford 7-1 retired. They start in the semi's at 10am this morning having to play a team from Cardinal Gibbons who you know from the past I am against Gibbons being allowed to play in public school championships. The Gryphon team of Fike/Thompson lost in the opening match of the doubles competition. Kaley Price of Nash Central was knocked out of the fray in her opening singles match while Hunt's Taylor Love won her opening match but did not survive the afternoon match. This morning ar Red Oak Middle school the Regional 3-A Cross Country championships will be held with several local teams and indivuals hoping for spots at next week's state championship. Fike and Hunt have seperated themselves from the pack with big wins last night in Big East football and by doing so in two weeks the winner of the Hunt-Fike game will win the Big East title. Fike clubbed Rocky Mount 37-13 while Hunt took care of business against Southern Nash 23-13. Fike and Hunt are the only unbeaten teams in the conference while Northern, Southern and Rocky Mount all have two conference losses and can't catch both by the end of the season. Rocky Mount found themselves down 14-0 in the first quarter and 24-0 at the half and never recovered against the Golden Demons. Since Halftime of the Hunt game last week in six quarters Rocky Mount has given up 71 points. Hunt found themselves trailing early but played Hunt football and pulled away from Southern Nash. In order for Hunt and Fike to head into the final game of the season unbeaten in conference they have Northern Nash and Nash Central to contend with next week. Northern Nash dominated Nash Central in picking up their first conference win of the season 21-0 at Nash Central. Nothing seems to be working for the Bulldogs but Northern sits in a position to grab third by seasons end but they have Fike and Rocky Mount to end the regular season. Tarboro got probably their toughest conference test of the season last night and the final was 48-0 Vikings. North Edgecombe was plastered by Northampton County 52-14 while SouthWest Edgecombe knew going into last night's game that they were playing a resurgent Farmville Central team. Farmville took the Cougars hope of winning the conference title away beating the Cougars 21-7. Rocky Mount Academy ended their regular season last night pounding Cary Academy 52-6. Seedings for the private school playoffs could be known today.

State Tennis Titles up For Grabs

This morning at 9am at the Burlington Tennis Center local Big East players get their shot at state tennis titles. In the singles Kaley Price of Nash Central who has been in the semi's before with her sister tries it on her own in singles as she will meet Adrienne Hayes of Asheville in the quarter finals. Hunt's Taylor Love tangles with Forestview's Kaelan Forbes. The doubles team from Rocky Mount will send their top two teams as the sister act of Chandler and Tanner Price get going in their top 8 match against a team from East Gaston. The doubles team of Eliza Fike and Mary Blair Thompson open their chance against a team from Weddington. Winners will play semi final matches Friday afternoon and if they win that round they have two more rounds Saturday to be State Champions. Yesterday in the second round of the State Volleyball playoffs Northern Nash made the three hour and ten minute bus ride to Topsail and lost a tough five set match losing the last game 25-20. We are over the hump in college football and most teams begin this weekend with the back side of their football schedule. Some still have a shot at conference crowns and a few still looking to go Bowling but for most North Carolina football teams the end of the regular season will end football for 2013. I was 8-0 on the college picks last weekend jumping my record to 46-16. Hope I am that good this week. Wake Forest at Miami: Wake is playing better football but with the news that Miami didn't get the death penalty from the NCAA and can play in a bowl game this year I think that will spur the U on. Miami 35 Wake 24. N C State at Florida State: The Pack gets their starting quarterback back who looked great in the one quarter he has played this year. The Pack needs to hope for a major letdown if they have any chance. This could be awful or entertaining FSU 46 Pack 26 Boston College at North Carolina: This is a match up of the two surprise teams in the league. BC is better than anyone could imagine and Carolina is worse than anyone could figure. I think Carolina gets this one but barely. Tar Heels 28 BC 23 Pitt travels to Navy where Duke was recently. Pitt wins 35-20 Virginia Tech at Duke: Now here is the interesting game of the week. VT defense is outstanding but Duke's offense isn't bad. If Duke could find enough defense to hold the Gobblers to under 20 they might have a shot. VT 31 Duke 24 Georgia Tech at Virginia: If The Rambling Wreck fumbles a lot it is close one but if they don't cruise control on a convertible. GT 35 Virginia 13 Clemson at Maryland: Ok both of these teams were exposed by FSU. I think this one will be either Clemson bubble bleeds for another Saturday or they act like a grown up and pop Maryland. Clemson will be mad 46 Maryland 21. Finally NC Wesylean at Huntingdon: The Battling Bishops need a win badly as they travel to Montgomery Ala to meet the Hawks. Looks to me in the matchups it Huntington 35-16.

Put Up Or Shut Up Time

Last week during the high school pick I missed only one and that was the Hunt Rocky Mount game. Somewhere along the way I left off my pick of North Edgecombe and Riverside-Martin but if I had of picked it I would have missed it after the Warriors got scalped. Heading into this week I am now 57-10 on the year. There are two unbeaten teams in the Big East and both will be playing the only two teams with one conference loss. Fike host Rocky Mount and Hunt host Southern Nash. As for Rocky Mount and Southern Nash you might as well call this their championship games because if they lose there in no chance of winning the conference championship. If either or both win then there is a mad scramble with two weeks to go. Rocky Mount at Fike: This will be an interesting week to see the come back ability of the Gryphons after a poor second half against Hunt. I am still not quite sold that Fike is the cream of the crop in the Big East. Fike with their spread offense seems to catch everyone off guard with their attack early but have to hold on in the second half. The speed of Fike's offense against the speed of Rocky Mount's defense. I'm picking Fike in a close one 28-24. Southern Nash goes to Hunt and you can see that Hunt is each week getting better all along. Southern is still hampered with running back injuries. The Firebirds have given Hunt the best games of everyone in the Big East since the Warriors joined the the league. I think the Birds injury list is too long to make a difference this year. Hunt 21 Southern Nash 16. Northern Nash at Nash Central. Northern is right there on the cusp. One itty bitty hill to climb over. Nash Central is no where near any cusp, yet the Bulldog defense can give the Knights plenty of trouble. The question in this one is can the Bulldogs score enough to win. I say no Northern Nash 14 Nash Central 7. Tarboro just might get the best test Friday that they are going to get during the rest of the regular season. Riverside Martin the team that slapped North Edgecombe rather hard last week. I think Riverside will find it hard to slap a team they can't catch. Tarboro 38 Riverside 7. North Edgecombe travels to Northampton County to play a decent team. If you match up the teams that both had played it would indicate to me that Northampton wins 26-14 SouthWest Edgecombe travels to Farmville Central and this could be a really tricky game for the Cougars. Farmville is as good as they have been in several years and the Cougars coming off a defeat to Washington who looks to be maybe the cream of the crop in that conference. I know Beddingfield still has a say. The Cougars can't afford to lose this one but it is close. SWE 26 Farmville 21.

Gryphon Tennis Cruises

Rocky Mount High school tennis team traveled to Triton on Tuesday for the second round of the Tennis Playoff duels and the Lady Gryphons blast the previously unbeaten Hawks 6-0. That of course means each Lady Gryphon won their singles match and due to the fact that Rocky Mount has already clinched victory there was no need for the three doubles matches. The Lady Gryphons 18-2 will travel in the third round to Terry Sanford 12-0 next week. What did you expect, the NCAA investiagation into the corruption of Miami University was halted when evidence was presented that in order to find out what was going on at the U the NCAA did improper actions in order to dig up the dirt they found on Miami The U will lose 3 scholarships a year for three years which is a tap on the wrist at best. Former basketball coach Frank Haith will be suspended for five games as he is now the basketball coach at Missouri. Basketball will also lose one scholarship per year for three years. Somewhere along the way the NCAA has lost perspective on how to deal out punishment. Teams five years after the infraction are punished for what others ahead of them created. The NCAA has to suspend coaches or any person in a program who knowingly violates the rules must be suspended for at least a year for their first violation and for life if it happens again. Haith getting punished now at Missouri punishes Missouri more than Haith. The NCAA must find a way to move faster whenever violations are reported. It should not take three years to report whether a booster gave money to an athlete or not. When the findings comes out that a booster gave money he should be banned from all college facilities for life.Until the NCAA sticks some power in the action people will continue to cheat when they know not much is going to happen to me. If coaches or University officials are involved they must be put out of business for a year and any other violation banned for life. After the way the NCAA screwed up the orginal Miami investigation and since Miami already served a self imposed ban on bowl games the NCAA needed to do something but as we all say when fussing with referees about calls they make. For the NCAA this was a make-up call. Not that long ago we were digging the grave of Wake Forest coach Jim Grobe. One of the great things that coaches love is to see players and teams mature right in front of their eyes.Guess it is life watching your child grow up. We all have a good feeling when we see what we have been trying to create in a child or a team finally starts showing. Wake Forest has the right coach for the program what they want to have. They are not going to get five star recruits to play for them but they get plenty of intelligent three stars players who know how to play as a team. We were all putting Grobe to pasture in early September and right now Wake might be the best team in North Carolina. Duke is one win away from going to their second Bowl Game in a row. I know that the last 40 years Duke football has been on skid row but back in their heyday they never went to a bowl game back to back. Coach Cut has changed the culture in Durham.

Northern Wins Conference Cross Country Title

Saturday Northern Nash dominated the boys cross country run as they have all year winning the Big East Cross Country Championship. Is there any question after Saturday night that Florida State is playing like Florida State use to play when they first joined the ACC. They are 3rd in BCS and quite frankly now that Clemson is out of the way who can beat them rest of the way, probably nobody? As you all Know my favorite player in the NFL is Philip Rivers who according to the NFL know it alls has had two terrible years the last two year. In fact his qb rating those two years was 89 which is the level that qb's are considered average. This year he is having his best year ever as a pro. He still has the 6th best QB rating in NFL history. If the NFL picked their MVP right now Peyton Manning would win hands down but looking at the numbers PR is on his heels. Manning QB rating is down to 123 which is out of sight. Rivers is 111 which if this was the end of season 111 would be the 2nd best in the history of football. Yesterday Rivers became the 5th youngest player to pass for 30,000 yards in his career. He is the 37th quarterback to reach that plateau. Here is some stats from those 30,000 yards. Antonio Gates has caught 6,375 of those yards. 43 players have caught a pass from River during his career. Nick Hardwick who has been the center for Rivers his entire career has snapped the ball either with Rivers under center or from the shot gun 24,500. Rivers and company are off this week but Sunday week they are in Washington which is about as close as he can get to us. Sure would like to be there. We are almost at the halfway point and who do you think will win the Super Bowl. I don't think Denver is as good as their record. Kansas city is still a mystery to me but they sure do have a good defense. New England will win their division but not much else. If I had to pick a winner right now I would take New Orleans. They not only have a great quarterback but a defense that can stop most folks. Well that's my predictions for this week probably somebody else next week.

Time For a Change

It has always seemed that the Big East gets slaughtered in the first round of the volleyball playoffs because they were always paired up with Eastern Plains teams of Conley, South Central and the likes. I have spoken many times of why they grow tall girls there and we don't. Most of those teams have moved up to 4-A and with it a switch for the Big East that at least they get a shot to try somebody else in the opening round. Saturday the three teams from the Big East began play in the state playoffs and two out of three have advanced to the second round. The only Nash County team who made the playoffs Northern Nash traveled to C B Aycock and the Lady Knights come back to Nash County knowing they will play again this week as they win in five sets 3-2 over Aycock. Northern 13-8 will travel to Topsail the 16-6 the number one team from the Mideastern. I don't know what is going on on Topsoil Island but for years Topsail has been a 1-A school and they have made the jump to 3-A. Must be a lot of people moving to the beach. The number two team from the Big East Hunt who just last week won the conference tournament lost 3-0 to Chapel Hill to end their season. Fike the Big East #1 beat West Brunswick 3-0 to advance to play Union Pines 17-7 the #3 team from the Cape fear Valley. Rocky Mount is the only Big East tennis team alive but only two made the playoffs to begin with. I like it a lot when the first game of the playoffs is against a quality team and wish the football playoffs would eliminate one round instead of theses slaughters we get in the first round of the football playoffs. Rocky Mount 17-2 travels to Triton 13-0 in the second round. There has been a change made by the NCHSAA which I like a lot. They are no longer going by conference seedings year by year. In the past each conference had a priority and when the top teams met the team with the priority was the home team. This year when ever number one seeds meet another number one seed the team with the best overall record is the home team. That is why Rocky Mount at 17-2 travel to Triton who is undefeated.

Big East Football Tighter Than Ever

Fike and Hunt both of the Wilson County schools have the early lead in Big East football as next Friday night is Hump day in the conference season. Fike I think over the past few years has been down somewhat so still being undefeated from where they were last year is a surprise. I know the Fike folks thought they were going to be good this year as maybe thisseason sa far isn't as surprising to them as it is to the rest of us. Hunt after going undefeated two straight seasons during the reglar season and that puts them at not losing a conference game that long as well. They stand 5-3 but their 2-0 conference starts have both come on the road. Southern Nash 1-1 has somewhat struggled all year in the non-conference part of their schedule and are finding the defense of the Big East teams with all thier injuries are not scoring many points. Don't care who you are if you only score 14 points in every game then you keep the other team in the game as well. Rocky Mount 1-1. If you look at the points Rocky Mount scored against Hunt the defense and specials teams played a huge part. Rocky Mount's offense has fell on hard times against the quality teams and looking at the rest of their schedule there are only quality defenses left to play. Like Southern, Northern Nash's inability to score not only keeps them from pulling away from anybody but thank goodness their defense is keeping them in games. The inability to score puts pressure for the defense to keep the other team off the score board all night. Nash Central's year to forget has found them in their two conference games in both at least in the first half. Last week they were in it till the end against The Gryphons and they were competitive with league leader Fike until the third quarter. They have scored 18 points in two conference games that that simply isn't enough to beat anybody.