Thursday, January 22, 2009

Barnes to undergo shoulder surgery Friday


That tricky left shoulder Rocky Mount senior offensive lineman Whit Barnes dealt with this past season is going to get fixed, the Wake Forest-bound All-Stater said earlier this week.

Barnes, who even missed a game (Southern Nash) to rest that shoulder, saw Dr. David Martin at Wake Forest University about a week ago and he said surgery was needed to fix his shoulder, which last popped out during the first half of the Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas game in South Carolina the week before Christmas.

Barnes, who started the game for the Tar Heels, was taken out of the game in the second quarter when it happened and he wasn't allowed to return to the game.

Martin, who is in charge of sports medicine at Wake, has scheduled surgery on Barnes for Friday at Bowman-Gray Hospital in Winston-Salem.

"The recovery is about five months total so I should be ready to go by the time I head up to Wake," said Barnes, who plans to enroll at Wake during the second session summer school. "It will be nice to get this surgery out of the way so I wont have to worry about it when I am playing at Wake. I would hate to go to school in July and my shoulder messed up again and have to get surgery when I could be trying to win playing time as a young O-lineman."

Barnes, who made the Associated Press All-State team on Christmas Eve, will sign with Wake Forest on Wednesday, Feb. 4.

He should have some company that day.

So far, senior defensive end Nick Harrison and senior offensive lineman Brandon Dennis have announced that they will be signing that day with UNC-Pembroke. The upstart D-II program, in just its second season, went 9-1 as an independent.

RMHS head coach B.W. Holt feels that at least seven of his seniors should be signing by the spring.

Sharpe joins the 1,000-point Club

(Click on picture to enlarge)

Rocky Mount senior guard Alonzo Sharpe became the sixth boys basketball player in school history to score 1,000 points in a career when he hit a shot late in the second period of the Gryphons' NEW 6 contest at Northern Nash on Jan. 9.

Ahead of the four-year starter are Phil Ford (1974), teammate Tashawn Mabry, Buck Williams ('78), George McClain ('82) and Jeff Battle ('78). Four girls players have also accomplished the milestone.

In the picture above, Sharpe was given a commemorative ball for the feat before RMHS' game with Southern Nash last Friday. Sharpe is flanked by family members and Gryphon head basketball coach Mike Gainey.

(Photo/David Hahula)