Comment
Print
Kevin Carver
However, the R-S Central girls and the East Rutherford boys won rounds two and three, which places them into the Western Regionals in Greensboro this week. Only three more wins stand in the way of a title for those two remaining in postseason play.
R-S Central’s girls have ventured into the third round of the postseason on two consecutive occasions, but haven’t made the 3A regionals since 1987. Without a doubt, R-S Central Ladies basketball coach, Darius Fuller was excited about the opportunity in a conversation over the weekend.
“It’s obviously big for our program because we have worked hard to get to this point, not only this season, but in recent seasons as well,” Fuller said. “It’s an honor to be in the elite eight and we hope to represent R-S Central and the Rutherford County well--win or lose.”
R-S Central (25-2) started the week by taking care of Hibriten, then Ashbrook at midweek before clobbering Forestview, 68-52. They played Hickory on Tuesday and should they win, will take on the Berry/Harding on Saturday at noon.
East Rutherford’s boys, who won the 2A state title a year ago, dispatched of Draughn, Wilkes Central and then ousted a very solid Smoky Mountain, this past Friday in a well-anticipated match-up.
East, down 32-31 at the half took care of Smoky Mountain in the second act.
“I knew our defense would get better as they game went. It’s been like that all year,” Levine said. “We kept their shooters off their spots in the second half and eventually Smoky’s legs gave out.”
For those who missed the third round action at East (23-3), they pushed out to an eight point lead early in the second half and kept that distance before stretching it out to a 72-55 win, thus making it to regionals.
Smoky, who has some good guards that can shoot lights out, had no answer for an uptempo East in the end, despite hitting ten 3’s. If East wins Thursday against Shelby, they will play at 8pm in Greensboro on Saturday.
At R-S Central (12-13), the boys won their first playoff game since the 2001 season. Coach Greg Wright was certainly pleased with the effort despite losing in the second round.
“At Forestview, we rebounded and shot 3’s the best we had all season long,” Wright said. “No matter what situation we got ourselves into during a game, we always managed to keep fighting back and that is what I am most proud of about these kids.”
The Thomas Jefferson (13-11) boys lost at Hayesville by 18 in the second round, but feature the best season yet for the Gryphons hoop club.
“Overall, I am not disappointed in the season, but I am disappointed in how it ended,“ TJCA boys coach Steve Waldroup said. “I felt like we were a little bit stage fright early at Hayesville in a very hostile atmosphere. Still, we beat some really good schools and put up TJCA’s best basketball season in history and that’s something to be proud of.”
In East Rutherford girls (18-8) second round defeat at Mountain Heritage of the 2A playoffs, Rachel Camp’s 27 and Kaziah Miller’s 17 point just weren’t enough.
“We have had trouble at the free throw line, good teams like Mountain Heritage will make you pay and they did so,” Coach Larry Ross said. “We had a great season, but I think we will be a tough team to beat next year.”
Finally, the 2012 Daytona 500 will be remembered as the one in which Juan Montoya hit’s the safety truck. Montoya knew he had a problem to begin with, got it looked at on pit road they never found a problem. Not even one lap later, the car breaks loose and into the safety truck which explodes moments later.
Luckily, the driver of the safety truck and Montoya were both okay. However, we better see a new safety change to the sport under caution. If the driver knows that a problem has occurred with the race car, they better get down the track and go no more than 40 mph. Juan says he was going that fast, but replays show otherwise.
