Update on Northern Guilford softball:
A ruling came down Saturday with three teams tied for first and NG would at least host Round One in the tournament and possibly games beyond Round One…
Today the ruling was updated and changed. NG will still play tomorrow(Tuesday) at home and then will travel to play their other two tournament games….
Mid-State 3-A Regular Season results have changed…
It was a three way tie for first, Eastern Alamance, Western Alamance, Northern Guilford..Each will get a trophy.
Northern Guilford will host the softball tournament starting Tuesday.
Coaching staff is suspended indefinitely.(Northern in question for playing players more than four games in a week/Too many innings in a week.)
Cynthia Jones is the acting coach. She was a full scholarship 3rd baseman for Lenior Rhyne University and a head softball coach in Florida before moving here.
The Northern Guilford Nighthawk team is in good hands under the leadership of Coach Cynthia Jones.
Here we go again.
New school + new coaches + new principal + new AD Director + 1,000 students + 300 athletes = growing pains and possible mistakes……takes time to iron everything out. We are getting there. If there is a problem…nip it in the bud and go on
Once again Northern thinking that rules don’t apply to them. They seem to think that the rules everybody else plays by are different than the ones they play by. Do they have a single sport that hasn’t been in some kind of scandal?
NG Girls Basketball, Volleyball, Soccer, Cross Country, Track only to name a few…
Andy, are you saying Northern will share in the Mid-state 3A title? If they are found in violation of the eligibility rules, they should be stripped of some of those wins…Shouldn’t they.
Not involved hit much of the nail on the head…I don’t remember any issues with the teams he mentioned and the first team that came to my mind was the girls basketball.. I don’t know tons about the other teams, but I don’t recall any problems at all ever, with the girls basketball and they have had success after Coach Furlough built her team….
The softball girls from what I understand were eligible to be on the team, it was more related to a rule they have in the girls softball where you can only play in four games per week, is what I keep on hearing….One of our softball parents will have to break down this rule for us, maybe Danny Shutt at SEG could shed some light on this one for us….
The softball kids were eligible, but they were playing too much, and it might also be a cross-over rule where you can’t play but so many games or innings outside the school program in addition to what you are playing for the school….I don’t know of many school teams that play 4 or more games per week and most ADs don’t schedule that many game for school teams….
Again, it may come down to playing too many games at school when combined with the games played outside the school with travel teams on the weekends and the coaches have to be aware of these type of things….
I think this one falls on the coach and the softball staff and not on the kids….The kids will all still be playing the rest of the year, from what we have been told…As far as the other two teams that are tied with Northern, unless these violations occured in games directly against these teams, then Western and Eastern Alamance can not benefit from this mistake by the coach when it comes to monitoring her team and the number of games played for the school or for outside teams….
Just a few ideas that may or may not apply to the issues at hand, and if anyone wants to contact me on this topic and you don’t want to have your name or info placed directly up here on the site, contact me at andy@greensborosports.com……
Here is what happened. Northern’s coach was pulling a JV player up to varsity after the JV game was already played at 5 pm , because the varsity game started at 7pm. She was pulled up to be a courtesy runner for the pitcher or the catcher. Northern had some make up games because of the rain dates. 2 weeks ago there was 3 games during that week because of the rain dates. So the JV player played the JV game, that’s 1 game..then was pulled up to be a courtesy for varsity, that’s game 2. If you do that 3 times for the week that’s 6 games played for the week. It wasn’t 6 games , but 4 games played . Your only allowed 3 during the week and 1 on the weekend. So this is what happened… 4 games forfeited , because 2 games for varsity exceeded the 23 game limit and 2 because they exceeded the 4 games in one week. ALL BECAUSE OF A COURTESY RUNNER. But a rule is a rule. Northern’s coach broke it…Northern is one hec of a team, scoring 197 runs in 20 games and 12-2 in the conference. To have these games forfeited because of a head coach that can’t count how many times a courtesy runner played in a game is shameful. This team has worked their butts off to win and for a coach to be this incompetent doesn’t deserve to be a head coach. Especially when the school is on probation and under a micro scope. Northern is able to play post season. So they just need to go out and beat these teams again. They didn’t do anything wrong the coach did. They deserve better. They have a great coach coaching them in the tournament. What a way to win a conference championship for turning the team in that clobbered you twice…. once in Alamance County. So they start over as a 4th seed…best 4th seed team in the state..lol and they still have a shot at the state championship. Go Nighthawks!!!!!
The additional three games were found out today…after the ruling by the state. My hats off to Will Laine, principal, for doing the right thing and finding out all the facts. This is so something will come up after post season starts and disqualifies the softball team from the state playoffs. Thank you Will.
Since NG is still on probation for the violations of the Basketball team,
how might this effect the sports program as a whole.
I don’t think this will effect the other sports programs at all. The softball team is still in the playoffs and this should not effect the other sports at all…Softball team and Principal Will Laine reported infractions to the NCHSAA….
Baseball team at home Round One playoffs versus South Johnston on Friday and the golf team is the State Finals led by coach Chris Jones and the track team has several team members in the hunt for the states with regionals coming up very soon, maybe this weekend….
The school is on probation for infractions by the football, baseball, softball, track, cheerleading and basketball. Not just basketball.
The infractions are all related to the same issue from last year. There were kids who were ruled out of district. Some of them played multiple sports so multiple sports were affected. To think that the use of a JV player as courtesy runner would affect the school’s status is ludicrous. Some people (a few miserable individuals) want NG to fail. Also, to say that the coach actions were shameful is a bit over the top. The individual simply made a mistake. The individual is paying the price by missing the state playoffs. Let’s not try to make every situation into a crisis.
Northern Guilford will be going to the state tournament next week. good luck nighthawks!!!
Just heard that the principal of the school that turned Northern in …. resigned last week. Reasons…she’s retiring….good for her…