Rocky Mount High School sports news, factoids, tidbits, Twin Counties info and more!
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Gryphon Seniors Pictures for sale
If you would like a glossy copy or copies of this photo, please email your request to Mr. Hahula at: dhahula@embarqmail.com or call him at 813-2271. The photos are $4.00 each.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Lee selected new Louisburg head football coach
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Gryphon News Tidbits
I. Senior center Whit Barnes had successful outpatient surgery on his left shoulder last week and the damage wasn't as bad as originally thought. Barnes will have to endure wearing a sling for a few weeks and then in about a month, he will start rehab on it. It should be as good as new by graduation.
II. Former Rocky Mount pitcher Jeremy Ward and his wife are expecting their first child in April. Ward, of course, led the Gryphons to the 1996 NCHSAA 4-A east regional finals. He played his college ball at Wake Forest and Long Beach State before being drafted into the pros. The couple is now living in Texas.
More good news for Ward's parents Ted and Jackie. Son Travis, former Nash County Babe Ruth Baseball All-Star head coach and a Northern grad, ironically, and his new wife will be giving them a grandchild this spring as well.
III. Ex-Gryphon baseball player Will Pridgen recently got his Master's degree in Sports Management from N.C. State and has landed a position with the Campbell University sports department. The Fighting Camels are now blushing over their new football team and football stadium complex and their recently opened 3,100-seat Pope Convocation Center - replacing that rickety Carter Gym that sat a mere 900!
We were all saddened earlier in the month by the death of his grandfather Dudley Whitley, who was AD at RMHS when I was a student.
IV. Not long ago, we saw former Gryphon athlete Adam Weaver in the dugout as an assistant baseball coach at Wilson Hunt. Now the Elon alum has taken a position with the State Employees Credit Union here in Rocky Mount.
V. Former Gryphon All-Stater Danielle Powell has taken a teaching position at a community colllege outside Seattle, Wash. Powell, who lettered 12 times as a Gryphon (four years in volleyball, basketball and softball and a seven-time conference Player of the Year in those sports), got her Bachelor's and master's degrees in communications at James Madison and a master's degree in divinity from Wake Forest. She played basketball for three seasons at JMU before a knee injury ended her career. She is RMHS' second all-time leading girls basketball scorer at 1,472 points.
J.J. ready for Super matchup
Friday, January 23, 2009
Silver anniversary reunion for 1984 Demons on Friday at Rocky Mount-Fike halftime
"Kinston was pretty much stacked," recalled Hilliard, now a Fayetteville resident. "We knew that if we could get together and get past Kinston, we could do it."Howard was in agreement.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Barnes to undergo shoulder surgery Friday
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
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)
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Battle celebrates her 1,000th point
Rocky Mount senior forward Dyonna Battle (center) received a commemorative basketball from Rocky Mount girls coach Pam Gainey (background, right) before a game with Hertford County on Jan. 7 to honor her 1,000th career point scored.
She scored that special point in a game at Kinston on Jan. 3 - the fourth female Rocky Mount player ever to top the 1,000-point mark. She joins the late Kim Taylor (RMSH Class of 1983), Danielle Powell ('92) and Latoya Armstrong ('03) on that special list.
Battle is flanked by her parents Donnell and Gail Battle.
(Photo/David Hahula)
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
RMHS football stats submitted to NCHSAA record book
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Awards dinner planned for Gryphon football team
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Mabry probable for Friday at Northern Nash; Sharpe on the edge of 1,000
The last time Rocky Mount had two 1,000-point scorers on the same team - 1978, in center Buck Williams and forward Jeff Battle.