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Only Patton stood in the way of a perfect South Mountain Athletic Conference season, but it didn’t ruin the Lady Cavaliers goal in the end.
East Rutherford softball became the 2013 SMAC Champs this season after clubbing Shelby 12-0 and then dispatching of Chase 11-6 last week.
East will host South Iredell on Friday (May 10), while Chase will travel to Pisgah or Brevard for the first round of the softball playoffs. R-S Central softball welcomes Enka to town on Friday.
R-S Central baseball should host Asheville in the first round. East Rutherford will go to Smoky Mountain. Thomas Jefferson baseball made the playoffs, but at press time it was unclear as to whether they would host or play on the road on Friday.
Thomas Jefferson girls will also get a wildcard spot in the 1A soccer playoffs, which will send them on a road trip in the first round.
On the NASCAR scene, Denny Hamlin got back in the race car for just a short time in Talladega. However, he was replaced by Brian Vickers in the early portion to keep him from reinjuring his back since ‘Dega usually has a big wreck or two. Ofcourse, we did see two huge wrecks and Ryan Newman’s take on the situation was probably the quote of the year so far.
The race was red flagged for over three and a half hours and just 58 laps left to go. When they went back green, you just knew something was going to happen. Newman would be the unlucky recipient as he caught Kurt Busch car flying through the air down the backstretch, yet ending his day.
Newman stated “The can build safer cars and safer walls, but they cant have their heads up their butts (for explicit language) far enough to keep them on the race track.” Newman thought the race should have been called long before that incident and stated that “they” got what they wanted. He definitely implicated NASCAR. I can’t blame Newman for safety reasons and the fact of causing a long day that was easily past the halfway mark of the event, which makes it an official race.
Although, if it wasn’t for the script to play out Sunday, David Ragan would have never won. Sometimes the little guys do triumph as Front Row Motorsports gets it’s first win as a small caliber organization. Ragan, who has won at Daytona before, showed that he can still race well at the restrictor plate tracks too. Ragan is very deserving and one of the nicest people you will ever meet in the garage area. David Gilliland did a great job to give his teammate a push as they nab a 1-2 finish.
The Lady in Black is next as NASCAR tries to tame Darlington. Well, that won’t happen, Darlington has a mind of it’s own and Saturday night’s event should be interesting.
Last week was also a good one for Jimmy Means as his Nationwide #52 team finished 19th with Donnie Neuenberger behind the wheel at Talladega after starting 36th.
We are less that 20 days away from the NCAA Baseball tourney for 2013 and the ACC baseball should be well represented.
North Carolina, Virginia, Florida State, North Carolina St., Virginia Tech, Clemson, Miami and Georgia Tech all look like locks as eight of the 64 teams to be in the field. UNC has spent most of the season at number one.
