The News and Record came out with their All-Area high school baseball team today and we know that Macon Smith from Western Guilford was named the Player-of-the-Year and that Alan Plaster, the head man at East Forsyth, earned Coach-of-the-Year honors…..(We have photos from the Western Guilford baseball banquet, held last Friday night, here at the site, courtesy of Bill Ahrens)
Anyone know who else made the N&R team????? They didn’t post this on-line so we could use your help in finding out who made the squad….I saw the sports cover at the Wal Mart, but I didn’t flip inside, because I thought the N&R might have it for us on-line….
What is going on down at the News and Record….Have they cut back again and has the entire weekend staff been let go????? I heard last week that the High Point Enterprise is now being printed in Richmond, Virginia and that they ship back to the Triad by truck each night….
Can you give us some names and I would be watching for:
Macon Smith(WG) and we know about him already…
Brock Hudgens(SWG)
Josh Tobias(SEG)
Desean Anderson(Ragsdale)
Luis Paula(NEG)
Ray Crawford Jr.(Dudley)
George Carter(Northern Guilford)
Cam Hendrix(High Point Wesleyan)
Cal Sutphin(SWG)
Matt Orth(SWG)+++++This might just be your Top Nine right here with Sutphin and Orth tied up for the last spot, but there are plenty of names to choose from and we have listed several and would still like to know who the N&R selected…..+++++
****************
Ben Fultz(Ragsdale)
Joe Turkson(WG)
Casey Jones(WG)
Keaton Haack(NWG)
Josiel Colon(NEG)
Harrison Phillips(NEG)
Jalyn Davis(NEG)
Bennett Hixon(High Point Wesleyan)
Tommy King(GDS)
Sawyer Highfill(Grimsley)
DJ Reader(Grimsley)
Trevor Brackett(Page)
Eric Kimber(Dudley)
Brandon Burkes(Dudley)
Tevin Neal(Dudley)
Adam Kirkpatrick(SEG)
Ty Powell(SEG
Tiger Miller(SEG)
Austin Hardin(NG)
Danny Casciano(NG)
Tripp Dunn(NG)
AJ Williams(VCS)
Jon Bethea(VCS)
*****Any of the following from East Forstyh if it was an All-Area Team:
Pete Schultz
Evan Orenstein
Shane Dickerson
Landon O’Dell
Luke Dunlap
Ben Anderson
Jacob Watts*****
It all adds to some fine speculation and is everybody satisfied or do we need to re-write some names?????
have n’t seen the list either, but do know that Orth probably could be pitcher of the year with a .92 era and 120 some strike outs.
he also batted about .380 and played great defensively at first base, with great ability to dig short throws and also athletic enough to leave the bag for others.
he definitely deserves a spot on the list.
1st 9:
Smith WG
Jordan Glenn
Carter NG
Hudgens SWG
Crawford DHS
Tobias SEG
Schultz EF
Fultz RHS
Anderson RHS
2nd 10:
Dickerson EF
Paula NEG
Orth SWG
Marrero WG
Colon NEG
Brown NEG
Turkson WG
Becker NWG
Barnett HPC
Hendrix Wesleyan
What makes up the area? Why isn’t Alamance county included?
That is one interesting list and at first I didn’t know Brown or Barnett and still don’t know of Barnett, but Johnny Brown is the kid from NEG that hit the ball hard all season and I can see that if that is the way they want to go…..
What do the rest of you think about the list…..
With Vandalia winning their State Title, they couldn’t get at least one kid on the second team? Maybe Williams or Bethea????
Maybe they should have a third team too?????
More thoughts from our readers would be appreciated…..
I think private schools should be included. Vandallias Nick Taylor & John Bethea made the 1st team all state and A.J. Williams & Caleb Stevens made the 2nd. in the NCCSA.
Tommy King makes all state and doesn’t even make honorable mention on the N&R list?
I ALSO THINK THAT YOU SHOULD HAVE A 3RD TEAM. WHAT ABOUT DJ READER
NEG KIDS HIT ABOUT 41 HOME RUNS FOR THE YEAR. DAVIS KID HIT ABOUT 6 OR
SEVEN,THE MCCAIN TWINS HIT ABOUT 5 OR 6. I ALSO UNDERSTAND THAT THE
DAVIS KIDS PLAYS 3RD BASE SHORT STOP PITCHERS AND CAN ALSO CATCH.
NEG HAS A VERY TALENTED TEAM, SHOULD HAVE SUPER SEASON NEXT YEAR.
If I understand the process, nominations are submitted by head coaches and then nominations received are circulated among area HC’s for vote; teams are comprised of the top vote getters.
Nominees not voted onto one of the teams receive honorable mention.
The presence of Barnett (HP Christian) and Hendrix (Wesleyan) seems to indicate that private school players are included (Myers was POY last year).
Tommy King was the missing name that jumped out at me also, lack of honorable mention seems to indicate that he wasn’t nominated. Doesn’t make sense unless there was an overight or missed deadline.
For what it’s worth, I like seeing a very selective process—that’s not to say that there were not additional deserving players, but there has to be a limit on whom to include. My guess is that honorable mention includes everyone who was nominated by his coach. based on that, it would appear that the N & R actually told the coaches to restrict their nominations to “3”. That’s another good step, because some coaches would nominates as many as 5 players for a high level all star team just to “get themselves off the hook”. As always, just my opinion!
As an aside, making a private school 1-A all state team does not necessarily mean you deserve to be on an all area team either 1st, 2nd, or third team. This should be a rude awakening for many that there are actually lots of good high school baseball players still not turning to lacrosse and other sports.
J.Colon NEG- should be in the top 3… The kid is just a sophomore, a 5 tool player.
hit over .450 with 9 HRs a lot of pop, great speed,outstanding arm.
no doubt his the best player out of NEG
there’s not many kids out there with his type of talent . “Heck of a player “
I guess the Grimsley coach didn’t nominate anyone. No Sawyer Highfill?
A real shame that Walt Sparks couldn’t even garner an honorable mention. I guess the injury hurt him since he couldn’t catch or pitch the last several weeks but he had a pretty strong year and was without a doubt one of the best catchers around before he got hurt.
.342 BA, 25 hits, 26 RBIs, 21 runs, 16 extra base hits including 5 HRs. One of the best overall athletes Ragsdale has had in awhile. Throw in his leadership and character and he’s hard to beat.
Actually, wasn’t Massey nominated from Grimsley. Maybe that was a punishment for the incident that never occurred earlier in the season. I do agree that Highfill at least deserved a nomination.
Mark,
I agree with you on Sparks, and could name quite a few more players who play his style of ball that should have been recognized.
Unfortunately, leadership and character are not traits that are high on the list for end of year awards.
I personally witnessed a team Captain on a team this year continuously walk back to the dugout after his many strike outs, knowing the team rule was to run back.
The next day at practice the whole team ran poles for this selfish individual.
After basically spitting on his team mates and Coaches all year long, he is rewarded by the Coach with a nomination to the all area team.
A fudged .340 batting avg., and leading his team in errors, to go along with a sorry attitude, does n’t warrant any awards in my book.
Go figure.
Don’t get me wrong, most kids on this list are great kids and players, and deserve every awarrd they recieve, but with some, the future will be a rude awakening.
Someone please tell me what Highfill did to warrant a nomination. The youngman is a good kid but an average baseball player. I saw Grimsley play three times and none of those players were all area type players. They only won maybe 5 games
To bolster the Sparks case, he faced DI bound pitchers in 7 of 12 conference games and had no short home run porch to inflate stats with lazy fly ball HR’s. There were other Ragsdale players this year with high averages and equally impressive stats.
Ragsdale has had post season snubs in the past though to include one of the leading hitters in their conference last year who didn’t even make All-Conference.
Eddie,
Get the facts before you comment its 3A not 1A.
I happen to agree with the thoughts on Walt Sparks, but isn’t your problem on that internal? The nominees have been posted on the N&R website and it doesn’t look like the HC nominated him. Ain’t that a Ragsdale problem? He might have been voted onto a team if the other coaches had gotten a chance to vote for him. I’d have voted for him if I’d had a vote.
For Beez, why not call your HC and ask him about the nomination instead of trying to drag kids from other programs down via implication, using assumptions that may be wrong?
The above poster is correct and the coaches’ nominations are at the News and Record on-line site under Tom Keller’s blog…..
We don’t need to start a jealousy journal here, let’s play ball and play it hard and clean…If you have a beef with a coach, go see the coach and let’s not try and tear down some kid and get all of us guessing who you were talking about….
Let’s leave the mysteries to the coaches and give the kids a break……
Thank you for the comments about my son’s achievements on the baseball field. He did the best he could even continuing to hit after he was hurt and tore his ulna ligament in his throwing arm. He tried to set a good example even though he was advised not to play at all.
I can tell you he has not looked at the paper to see who made it or who was nominated. No one in our family has looked to see who made it. We stopped taking the N&R many years ago. I think someone is correct that the coach has to nominate you. That is between he and his coach. There are several kids at Ragsdale worth mentioning. Looking at the kids named on this website to the 1st and 2nd teams I can’t see anyone that does not deserve to be there. They are all very talented and deserving of the honor.
Walt had a great 4 years at Ragsdale and we could not be happier. Ragsdale was a great experience for him. We hope every high school kid can experience something like the 4 years he had. The group of friends and relationships he formed will last a lifetime. He came through with a great group of kids, teachers and coaches and for that we all feel blessed. Walt would have never experienced the success he did without the help of all those kids, teachers and coaches.
Let’s celebrate the kids that were recognized. They all earned it.