Top Sports Stories of the Year for 2011

Was going to start this up last night, but wanted to wait until the last day of the year and then proceed with the Top Sports Stories of the Year for 2011….

Right off the top, from where I see this all happening, I would take the Page football win in the NCHSAA 4-AA Championship and the Greensboro Grasshoppers winning the South Atlantic League Baseball Champsionship…..Page first title since 1985 going back 26 years and for the Grasshoppers, first championship since 1982, going back 29 years…..Lots of great efforts on the part of Page, but we will never forget the year that James Summers had and the excellent job that Coach Kevin Gillespie did carrying his team to the title and those Hoppers with Mark Cana at first, Noah Perio at second, Danny Black at SS, Ryan Fisher at 3rd and in the OF you had Christian Yelich, Isaac Galloway and Marcel Ozuna and we can’t forget manager Andy Haines……And what about the veteran pitcher Kyle Winters? He was here with the team in 2007 and back to pitch the deciding Game Five winner in 2011….

Other teams and that seems to be the big story, the team accomplishments, you had Northern Guilford’s 3-AA title in football, giving them back-to-back wins in 2010 and 2011….The Southwest Guilford girls basketball championship was big….Other teams earned titles with NWG, Grimsley and Bishop McGuinness claiming various crowns….

It is not in Greensboro, but down in Charlotte, and sportswise, it really caught the fans attention in 2011 and that was the outstanding play of Cam Newton, with the Carolina Panthers in his first year as a pro in the NFL…..He exceeded all of the expectations from what I could see……Not in Greensboro again, but we sure followed it and that was all of the goings on down in Chapel Hill, with the UNC Tar Heels football program…..Three different coaches over a six-month period……Going back to last summer, you had Butch Davis, Everett Withers and now Larry Fedora….Also in the same city, you had the retirement of long-time Tar Heel radio announcer Woody Durham…..

More closer to home we had all the changes at Oak Hidge Military Academy and as someone mentioned earlier today, this has gone on to benefit several current high school basketball programs with Theo Pinson moving to Wesleyan, Michael Obacha going to High Point Christian, Julian Sampah to Greensboro Day School, Carlos Rankins to Thomasville Prep and K.J. Langley to Southwest Guilford….

There were many more and you may want to comment on these, or add a few of your own…..

One thought on “Top Sports Stories of the Year for 2011

  1. We also need to mention David Amerson from Dudley, don’t you think??? He came up with those 13 interceptions and made the Walter Camp All American team…..

    The Northeast Guilford baseball team played for the State 3-A Championship and Southeast Guilford missed the 4-A Fnals by just one game……

    You may have more to add to our list…..

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