High School Highlights and Lowlights-Roundball Roundup

Last Friday night the highlights were shining on the Grimsley girls when they knocked off powerhouse High Point Central 51-47 at Bob Sawyer Gymnasium. Phil Weaver had his young ladies playing their best brand of basketball in this Metro 4-A encounter. Trumae Lucas led the Whirlie attack with 22 points as the Whirlies built a 6 point lead after 3 quarters. Nicole Hargraves added 16 points and Grimsley hit some key free throws down the stretch to preserve the victory. Central outscored Grimsley 13-11 in the fourth quarter but the Whirlies held on to make their conference mark 4-0 for 2005-2006. Coach Kenny Carter of Central was not happy with his team’s effort but you really have to give the credit to Grimsley because they start three sophomores and a couple of juniors and coach Weaver is a believer and so are we at GS after witnessing the win.

The Northeast Guilford boys qualify for a highlight reel after romping over Morehead 77-47. Morehead had just played Dudley to a one point game(a 71-70 loss Tuesday Jan. 3rd)and Northeast had not been satisfied with their showing in the Little Four. The Rams defeated the Panthers with Lamont Stokes connecting for 26 points and Guy Wilson, a transfer from Page burning the nets for 18. The Ram victory was supported by Mezie Uzochukwu’s 13 points and Sammy Grooms, the Smith transfer, with 11. Northeast coach Curtis Hunter must now keep on pushing the right buttons if his Rams can hope to dethrone the Dudley Panthers as the top dogs in the Triad 3-A conference. In the win over Morehead the Rams raced to a 37-13 halftime lead and took it home from there.

Greensboro Day School’s light keeps shining bright as the Bengals pulled out a big win over Providence Day on Saturday 51-46. GDS, now 20-1 was paced by Johnny Thomas(21 points) and Josh Lanham. The J&J tandem is working very well for the Bengals inside this season. The Bengals are now poised to make concerted attempt to run the table in the PACIS but challenges still loom with teams like High Point Wesleyan and Forsyth Country Day wating in the wings. Christ School out of Asheville comes to town in a couple of weeks, so GDS will need to play their best to keep that record rolling and the W’s growing.

The light went off for the Page Pirates when they claimed a hard-earned 62-61 overtime win against North Forsyth on Friday night. The Pirates moved to 4-0 in the Metro 4-A and now Page might be set to make a run of their own against the other members of the Metro. Smith is 9-5 overall with new coach/old coach Reggie Peace at the helm. High Point Central will make some noise with big Jerry Chandler and Raemon Smith inside. Page can make their leader Robert Kent very happy if they can keep up the run. The Pirates’ floor leader is Marsharee Neely who had 22 in the win over North and Neely gets plenty of help from Shelton Carter, Danny Baker, and Antoine Adams.

Before we leave for this time around we need to leave you with some of the lowlights for the week. The Glenn Bobcat boys are not living up to pre-season expectations. Glenn is 6-7 overall and 0-1 in the conference after Friday’s 70-69 loss to High Point Andrews. Glenn has the junior superstar Eric Wallace, Chris Jacobs, Jeff Adams and several other key players back from last year’s team that reached the regional finals against Dudley. Glenn will have to get it going in a hurry if the want to be back in that same hunt again this season. Kellen Brand had 41 for Andrews and he might be the man to start watching as the lights come on this week.

The High Point Central girls have also cast a lowlight shadow early this season and they have a long way to go to get back to the level they have been competing at for the past 10 years. They have U CONN signee Kristen Phillips and we have not heard much out of her since she transferred to Central from Northwest Guilford. What’s really wrong with Central? Stay Tuned……..

This week’s TOP TEN POLL( Boys)
#1 Greensboro Day School
#2 Dudley
#3 Page
#4 High Point Andrews
#5 High Point Central
#6 Northeast Guilford
#7 Smith
#8 High Point Wesleyan

#9 Southeast Guilford
#10 Northwest Guilford

This Week’s TOP TEN POLL (Girls)
#1 Dudley
#2 Grimsley
#3 Northwest Guilford
#4 Page
#5 High Point Central
#6 Southeast Guilford
#7 Eastern Guilford
#8 Smith
#9 Ragsdale
#10 Southwest Guilford