The Greensboro Grasshoppers had another nine inning complete-game shutout back last Thursday from Derrell McCall and then followed that up with another nine inning complete-game from Graham Taylor on Friday night. The Hoppers’ pitching staff has put together four complete games this season and three of those belong to Taylor. The big thing about this is it’s all come in the first half and Greensboro never gets pitchers going nine innings let alone having complete-game shutouts. Taylor and McCall both have one to their credit.
Curt Schilling, Andy Pettite, Mariano Rivera, Jason Vargas, Chris Volstad; Taylor has out-done them all and looked better than any of those guys. A local fan tried to tell me the other day that Roger Clemens pitched here and I found out later that he was just pitching horseshoes out behind the Pepper’s Den on Spring Garden Street.
The Hoppers are done until after the SAL All-Star break and they concluded the first half with a record of 38-32. Six games over .500, not too bad for a team full of no-names on the way in this year.
The Carolina Dynamo got back to victory lane with a nice 5-2 win over the Palm Beach Pumas. The Dynamo are in action again this Saturday night against Cocoa Beach at Macpherson Stadium, game time is 7:30. No word on the Revolution coming out of the weekend but I’m sure Matt L. will get us up to date as news develops and Matt tells me the operation may be on the blinks but that Tony and Nancy Pewonski have always treated him with respect and that they have gone out of their way to help Matt and his son be closely involved with the team.
The Shockers beat the Guilford Patriots 7-6 on Sunday at Grimsley and the Shockers did it with many of their players away on vacation or at State Games. This was the second meeting of the year between the two Palomino baseball powers and now the series is deadlocked at one game a-piece. The Patriots took game one 7-6 and now with things all tied up at 1-1 the next game will be huge.
In Sunday’s contest Clint Moore hit another home run and drove in the game-winning run to score Ken Daly for the 7-6 final. The game-winning RBI was big and the fact that Alan Craven, Aaron Jones, and several other Shockers were missing makes it even more interesting.
Grimsley’s Moore, Craven, and Cody Walker were all named to the Metro 4-A All Conference team in baseball and also on it were Alex Phetteplace, Logan Self, Brandon McKiney, John Nesse, all from Northwest Guilford. Kenny Swab of East Forsyth was named Player-of-the-Year and Zac Truesdale joined Swab on the squad from East.
I was just a little confused about the message you were trying to convey in the 2nd part of this post about The Shockers beating The Patriots, so I thought I would add what I know by being around the baseball field and following sports in local publications.
If your story was about the win, the first paragraph would have sufficed and been accurate. However, in the second paragraph, you mentioned that The Shockers were missing several key players but failed to mention that The Patriots were also missing several key players. Both of these teams are made up of very talented individuals and I believe that if they play 10 times, all will be competitive and will quite possibly be a 5-5 split.
The third paragraph mentions all conference players from the metro 4-a. If your article was talking about players who play for the Shockers and Patriots, from the Metro 4a,there are several mentioned (Phetteplace, Self, McKinney, Swab and Truesdale) who play for neither team. However Travis Woolen from E.Forsyth also made all conference and wasn’t mentioned. He plays for The Patriots.
I still find it confusing why you singled out the metro 4a as both The Shockers and The Patriots are made up of teams that represent other conferences.
The Shockers consist of students that live in the Grimsley, Southern and SE area. Derek Brewer (from Southern) made all conference from the Northstate 2a. Austin Moyer and Cam Cockman made all Conference from the mid-piedmont 3a. There are a few others (Medley, Stone, and Areno) that did, but I don’t think they are playing for The Shockers.
The Patriots are made up of NW, SW and E. Forsyth players. As I mentioned, Woolen from E. Forsyth made all conference in the metro 4a. John Neese is the only NW player on The Patriots that made all conference from The Metro 4a. From SW, players that play for The Patriots that made All Conference from the Piedmont Triad 3A are Blaine McCraw, Warren Slack, and Brett Underwood.
I do appreciate your sports coverage, but just thought this particular post was incomplete so I thought I would add my .02.
Thanks!
There’s a huge battle brewing between the Shockers and the Patriots. It is a good battle but the competition going on with these guys is getting hot. Both teams will be missing players in upcoming games but I do believe that the best two teams in the Palomino league right now are the Patriots and the Shockers.
I mentioned as many kids as I could from Northwest and Grimsley on the Metro 4-A All-Conference squad because right now for some reason our largest summertime readership is coming from those two areas.
We had a pretty strong group checking in from Southeast Guilford a couple weeks back but that fire has cooled off now. We try to keep the fires burning without burning down the town and killing off our following. The stirring of the proverbial pot seems to get more people visiting the comment box and that is good because that keeps people coming back to the site several times a day to see what everyone is saying.
I kind of like the fact that there is a good fire burning right now between the Patriots and the Shockers and if can keep giving them coverage that keeps people talking then we are in it for the long haul.
I was going to mention more of the East Forsyth players that made the All Metro team but I knew I had to get Swab’s name in there because he was Player-of-the-Year and I know that Zac Truesdale’s dad has been reading the site on a regular basis and he checks in some days 4-5 times or more so I had to get some props to Zac.
I thank you for getting the other kids names in and Southwest Guilford often gets left out of parts of our coverage because their people don’t keep in touch with us like many of the others do. I wish the Page coaches would send us more info. In some ways we are like a recruiting source and those that are connected read the site to see how local players are doing.
Just a few explanations not excuses and hopefully others like the Sportsmom, Justin and Johnny Smith, and Lester Rivenbark will keep us informed and on our toes. We will print, promote, and plug any worthy player; we just need the info, and the sources that call us the most will get the most ink.
how about it for Kenny and Zac and Travis and speaking of shockers i thought that was a wrestling move