Day Three Observations from the HAECO Invitational Basketball Tournament:We have two New Champions!!!!!

We will have Wyatt Smith coming in with Championship Game write-ups later on here at the site tonight, and we just wanted to get the ball rolling again, with our Day Three Observations from the HAECO Tournament, and we will list a few/some now, and be adding others later on…

Just a great final day/night of the tournament and everyone kept on saying, that the games had been blowouts, but not tonight, with the Page boys winning by one point on a last second shot and then Ragsdale rallying to take over and top the NWG girls by five points and last, but not least, it was that men’s final in Overtime, with the Northwest Guilford Vikings dethroning the seven-time champions, the Greensboro Day School Bengals….

The game-winning bucket in OT for Brandon Thomas, from NWG, the game-winning shot by Nate Duggins, from Page High School, as the Pirates defeated Smith in a blistering-pace second half and then there was Ragsadale’s KD Walker being helped off the court by her coaches, as she was injured and couldn’t walk and then Walker walks back out there, and finishes the game with grit and determination for the RHS Tigers…..

Brandon Thomas, Nate Duggins, KD Walker, those kids really get got my attention tonight, as I was observing the last day of HAECO….

Class acts in NWG boys coach Lee Reavis and GDS boys coach and AD, Freddy Johnson and smacked a low-five at the end of the NWG OT win….

Ragsdale AD Brian Herndon talked with us after his team’s win and we heard from Ragsdale head coach Ben Bradford and both are class acts and both are very proud of their girls and their school, as they took the title back to Jamestown….

We talked to NWG coach Lee Reavis last night and he told us, and then we told you, that the last team to beat the GDS boys in the HAECO Tournament was the Lee Reavis-coached NWG Vikings, back in 2010, when the then #8 NWG Vikings upset the #1 seeded Greensboro Day School Bengals, in the opening round and the GDS boys had won 23 consecutive games in the tourney since that night….

We told you, but many of you would not listen to us….

And I am telling you now and then I will take my first break tonight, for a quick evening meal and then I will be back, but look at Megan Harkey from the Northwest Guilford girls team today and then look back at her 2-3 years ago and I will say, she just might be the Most Improved Girls Basketball Player in our state…There can’t be much wiggle-room on this one….She has come so far and it is almost unbelievable….Megan, we are real proud of you…

And you have NWG’s Brandon Thomas, with guts to get that game-winning shot up for the NWG boys tonight, and it was almost like he got the game-winning RBI, in a baseball game, it was so BIG….

How about our main man, Jaden Ellis from Page…The soph made the All-Tournament team and this kid is for real, with over 70 points in the tournament…Nate Duggins got the clincher, but Ellis did his thing too…

Brandon Thomas, Christian Hampton and Dean Reiber on a roll tonight for the NWG boys…
*****A little more on Christian Hampton, the more I think about it, the more he reminds me of Bruce Dalrymple, who used to play for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets…Hampton, sort of a tweener, kind of like Dalrymple, but Hampton can get up….I mentioned it to him last night/Friday and I took him back to a game at Northwest Guilford, where he jumped so high, that he went up over the rim and came down laying “flat out”/prone, on the basketball floor….Hampton is a unique player and gets a lot out of his motor and he is one of those kids, where his motor is going full steam, at all times and you have go like the fact, that he gave all of the credit for his basketball success, to his dad, who was there with him to enjoy the NWG boy’s championship last night…*****

Also very impressed with Dean Reiber and his cool demeanor….Very laid back off of the court, and very as they these days, very “cerebral”….The kid has a very good basketball foundation at 6’9, but you have to know how to do something with it, and the young man we call, “The Grim Reiber”, is doing a lot with his game, and he is doing a lot to develop and improve his game….A tip of the Summerfield cap, to Brandon Thomas, Christian Hampton and Dean Reiber and to NWG head coach Lee Reavis, congratulations on your team’s first-ever HAECO Invitational Basketball Tournament title…Good to see for Coach Reavis, a man born and raised on Northwest Guilford basketball and football…As say over by the old Summerfield Feed Mill, ‘Home Grown’………

Faith Price and Nyah Stallings also coming up big, along with KD Walker from the Ragsdale girls team and you had Reagan Kargo and Thalia Carter doing their part to try to keep that HAECO Tournament girls trophy in Summerfield, instead of it going over to Jamestown…

You had the emergence of Josh Taylor, from the GDS boys, and the ceiling on this kid is unlimited……

Some kind of last day for the HAECO Tournament and we will have more to talk about later on this evening…..

Here is one more point before I go get my food, GDS had taken a 67-62 five-point lead in OT, before NWG got back in the game, and stole/took the title…

Mariah Frazier from Ragsdale with very solid defense on Reagan Kargo, from Northwest Guilford, on Friday night…Kargo had a solid game, but Kargo and Carter had work way too hard to keep the ball moving and to get it across half court for the NWG Vikings….Pressure defense from Ragsdale was breaking NWG’s back, in the backcourt….

Bryant Wall, from the Ragsdale boys team with 24 points and 13 rebounds on Friday and Wall had a huge tournament and probably makes the All-Tournament team, if his Tigers finished third or better, in the tourney….

Solid tournament for Je’Bria “Full Throttle” Fullwood from the Greensboro Day School girls team, as she finished Friday night with 12 points and 10 rebounds, and Fullwood earned membership on the HAECO All-Tournament team…..

*****We will have more later on…*****

Girls’ Championship
#2 Ragsdale 50, #1 Northwest Guilford 45

Girls’ Third-Place Game
#5 Greensboro Day 53, #6 Page 35

2018 HAECO Invitational All-Tournament Team (Girls)
Je’Bria Fullwood, Greensboro Day School
Thalia Carter, Northwest Guilford
Reagan Kargo, Northwest Guilford
K.D. Walker, Ragsdale
Nyah Stallings, Ragsdale
Faith Price, Ragsdale (MVP)

Boys’ Championship
#2 Northwest Guilford 68, #1 Greensboro Day 67 (OT)

Boys’ Third-Place Game
#4 Page 50, #3 Smith 49

2018 HAECO Invitational All-Tournament Team (Boys)
Jaden Ellis, Page
Camren Hayes, Greensboro Day School
Josh Taylor, Greensboro Day School
Brandon Thomas, Northwest Guilford
Dean Reiber, Northwest Guilford
Christian Hampton, Northwest Guilford (MVP)

Girls Top Scorers from the Tournament

 POINTS                                        G  Pts  Pts/G
               ---------------------------------------------
               Stephanie Chandler-NGHS-W.....  3   55   18.3
               Reagan Kargo-NWG-W............  3   48   16.0
               Janelle Henderson-NGHS-W......  3   46   15.3
               Je'Bria Fullwood-GDS-W........  3   45   15.0
               Faith Price-RAGS-W............  3   43   14.3
               India Sturdivant-SMITH-W......  3   34   11.3
               Isabel Cox-GRIM-W.............  3   34   11.3
               Anna Schmedes-PAGE-W..........  3   32   10.7
               Nyah Stallings-RAGS-W.........  3   32   10.7
               Brooke Bradford-RAGS-W........  3   32   10.7
               Alaila Kreuter-PAGE-W.........  3   30   10.0
               Reagan Maynard-PAGE-W.........  3   27    9.0
               Jayla Harris-NGHS-W...........  3   27    9.0

Girls Top Rebounders

REBOUNDS                                       G  Reb  Reb/G
               ---------------------------------------------
               Je'Bria Fullwood-GDS-W........  3   32   10.7
               Megan Harkey-NWG-W............  3   26    8.7
               Alaila Kreuter-PAGE-W.........  3   26    8.7
               India Sturdivant-SMITH-W......  3   21    7.0
               Jayla Harris-NGHS-W...........  3   21    7.0
               Kamri Sawyers-GRIM-W..........  3   21    7.0

Men’s Tournament Top Scorers:

POINTS                                         G  Pts  Pts/G
               ---------------------------------------------
               Jaden Ellis-PAGE-M............  3   68   22.7
               Christian Hampton-NWG-M.......  3   55   18.3
               Carson Lomax-NGHS-M...........  3   53   17.7
               Devan Boykin-RAGS-M...........  3   51   17.0
               Bryant Wall-RAGS-M............  3   51   17.0
               Dean Reiber-NWG-M.............  3   49   16.3
               Josh Taylor-GDS-M.............  3   44   14.7
               Isaiah Staton-Ray-DHS-M.......  3   41   13.7
               Nick McMullen-SMITH-M.........  3   37   12.3
               Devin Resper-GRIM-M...........  3   36   12.0
               Camren Hayes-GDS-M............  3   34   11.3
               Carson McCorkle-GDS-M.........  3   34   11.3

Boys Top Rebounders from the Tournament

REBOUNDS                                       G  Reb  Reb/G
               ---------------------------------------------
               Bryant Wall-RAGS-M............  3   35   11.7
               Jordan Williams-SMITH-M.......  3   27    9.0
               Nicholas Evtimov-GDS-M........  3   26    8.7
               Josh Taylor-GDS-M.............  3   24    8.0
               Daniel Cooper-GRIM-M..........  3   23    7.7
               Juwelz Hargrove-SMITH-M.......  3   23    7.7
               Tyler Young-DHS-M.............  3   23    7.7

27 thoughts on “Day Three Observations from the HAECO Invitational Basketball Tournament:We have two New Champions!!!!!

  1. Isn’t recruiting grand! Congrats to the Ragsdale Lady Gaters on their first HAECO championship. It’s truly incredible that a team can go from an 8th seed to winning the tournament the next year. Wow

    Truly impressive and noteworthy. GREAT coach and stellar recruiter. No one deserves this championship and recognition more than he and his Lady Gaters.

  2. WhirliesTom get over it…….there’s lady Gaters all over Guilford County……NW had 7 Lady Gaters that won 2 state championships….Northern Guilford had 7 Lady Gaters who won state championships……GDS an up and coming girls program has 5 Lady Gaters on the team…….I didn’t hear you last year calling the NW Vikings the NW Lady Gaters or the Northern Nighhawks the Northern Lady Gaters.

    Congrats to Coach Bradford and the Lady Tigers……keep doing big things……Bradford as long as you have guys like WhirlieTom talking about you it means your doing something right.

    WhirlieTom with a New Year right around the corner maybe you can jump on over and be a TigerTom……

  3. Congrats to my RAGSDALE TIGERS.
    Ben Bradford is an awesome coach. I am going to say this about my daughter’s coach. This is a loyal coach and recruiting kids has never been him. He didn’t recruit when I met him when my daughter KD Walker started with him. You only know what you hear. Ragsdale was losing no one cared cause it was an easy win. Now we have new coach since my daughter sophomore year we have not heard anything good.Bradford has worked hard and the girls did too to deserve this title. HARD WORK PAID OFF NOT RECRUITING.I been there since day one…ALL THE HATERS STAY AWAY!!

  4. Tigers in the Haeco’ house, c’mon, Do it baby, stick it baby!

    I’m living my best life
    Ain’t goin’ back and forth with you haters. I’m living my best life!

    You got a lot to be smilin’ for (smile) (smile) Come on!

    If you breathing, you achieving (smile)

    I’m living my best life
    Ain’t goin’ back and forth with you haters. I’m living my best life!

    Congrats Tigers!

  5. I think the difference is that the head coaches of NW and Northern are not associated with the Gater program whereas the head coach of Ragsdale is actually a big part of the Gater program. High school rules are set up to prevent AAU programs from dictating where kids play but there are always ways to circumvent the system. When three of the better players in the county leave their high school and end up at the same high school it is obviously going to rankle some feathers. As far as I know Kargo is the only player at NW that has changed schools and I believe they actually physically bought a house in that district that they actually live in. Also when she left Page their girls program was in flux as Jones was stepping down and a new coach was coming in. The problem is when people rent a house or buy a house in a district but keep another house that they actually live in. While it may be legal and all per GCS guidelines it smacks of recruiting.
    While parents are going to do what is best for their kids it is disheartening to see the better players all congregate at one or two schools. There are many good coaches in Guilford County who do a good job but with the current atmosphere of trying to build super teams it leaves many programs depleted and ruins the competition.
    I like Andy’s idea of a basketball academy that competes with teams that are similar. Using a public school to do that sort of thing is not very sporting.

  6. Congrats and great come from behind wins to both the Ragsdale girls and the Northwest boys. Hard fought contests with terrific action at both ends of both games. Super coaching jobs by Bradford and Reavis.

    Okay, Hold On, so if it’s just one kid that transfers, it’s alright, but more then that it’s not??? Where were all you haters (Whirlie Brain Tom) when Kids were leaving Ragsdale to play for Central, Andrews, or Southwest? Both boys and girls… Whether a program is in transition or not, parents have the responsibility to make the right choices with their student. How many Gator kids have gone on to college on basketball scholarships??? So you are disparaging parents and students for doing what is best for them because it doesn’t suit your idea of what is fair. That smacks of ignorance. The problem is Guilford County’s inane rules… Forcing our teams to compete for state championships against open enrollment schools. That is what is truly unfair. Stop hating on good kids that are working hard and doing the right thing.

  7. @Holdon…So NW has had 7+ Gaters for the last several years with absolutely no competition in the Haeco or the State and now that they have a little bit of competition, it’s a problem. Hmmmmm!

    And yes it’s okay to relocate your home to a new district where a program is already in a flux from a program with coaching issues to a dominant program where the Assistant Coach is also a Gater Coach. Oh yeah, good timely move! Not mad!

  8. Northwest was missing their two best players and still nearly won. Ragsdale fans are acting like they beat the 95 Chicago Bulls.

  9. @Hold on…I guess you would rather see 1 team dominant everyone with no competition…..that’s funny…lol. I’d rather see a good competitive game, like last night. And congrats to the all-tournament team. They were all Gaters, except for one. Sounds like the Gaters have a great a good program…..lol

  10. You’re right and Ragsdale got nothing out of their 2 best players in the 1st half so we get it. Hopefully everyone will be healtthy for the future matchups. No worries, we expected that excuse!

  11. Hey hoops junkie where did I “disparage” any kids in my post? Or put down any parents?
    I said parents would do what’s best for their kids. Never said they should not.
    I said it was “disheartening” to see kids jump around schools which is not “disparaging” any kid.
    This practice ruins the competition and makes for boring games like what happened in the girls bracket of the HAECO this year.
    Plenty of deserving athletes get scholarships without having to jump around schools.
    Believe it or not a lot of girls playing basketball still go to college to play basketball and they are not GATERS.
    Before you start calling people “ignorant” maybe you should have someone explain posts with big words to you.

  12. Just ridiculous NW asst coach Tom King (Kayla dad) is an asst coach on Bradford Gater Team, Ray Kargo (Raegan dad) is an asst coach on Ben Bradford team, GDS asst coach Dave Wyrick ( Caroline dad) is an asst coach on Ben Bradford Gater Team. Northern has an assistant that works at GDS but helps Northern that is also a Gater coach. I think the issue is the wrong kids are moving so you people don’t like that. A kid can move to NW district and its perfectly fine but oh no it’s forbidden to move anywhere else. Please cut the bull already. Just face it the best girls in the county are Gaters and all of them are Gaters including Cunane who is dominating at the college level. I was looking for WhirlieTom yesterday at the game he was no where to be found. Just let Coach Bradford, the girls and Ragsdale enjoy the win no matter how it was taken, with NW missing 2 key players or not Ragsdale won the game and shouldn’t have to suffer backlash for winning. The last time Ragsdale won it was 2008 so it is a special win for that program. I commend KD mom for taking up for her coach. Anyone that knows Bradford knows he don’t recruit and play with kids he has. When he took over the program the seniors now was sophomores and the previous year had won only 6 games his first year he won 17 games with the same players so a change was needed. The next year he won 22 games with 4 loses to NW and none of the kids you are referring to were there Ragsdale program was changed before they got there. So kudos to Ragsdale and coach Bradford. Let them enjoy the moment. NW is in their conference so they will play them at least 2 maybe 4 more times. Sad thing of it all is all the Gaters are friends and like family so you making these comments hurts all of them, from NW, Ragsdales, GDS, Northern, page these girls reads this stuff and they comfort eachother its just sad that you have adults attacking kids. That’s ridiculous if you have questions and want the truth go to the source which is the parents, but you won’t do that. I just don’t want this negativity to overshadow the fact that these girls work hard and just won a championship.

  13. Just remember this one common denominator in sports:

    “IF YOU CAN PLAY, THEY WILL FIND YOU”

    Discipline, Hard Work Ethic & Dedication are key ingredients that are universal in sports at all levels.

  14. Northern Guilford has won two state championships without a single kid transferring in ever. Furlough starts developing the players in her district from an early age and is a stickler for going by the book. Just because some of the girls in her program happen to play for the Gaters doesn’t put her in the same conversation with other questionable coaches. Furthermore, none of the varsity coaches are involved in AAU.

  15. The issue is that kids are moving period. Sure you get an occasional good matchup like last night but 75-80 percent of the games are complete mismatches due to kids jumping around. Which is why you see kids jump around when they get to the college level because they are being taught the wrong things.
    Used to be that programs would have good runs and then rebuilding years but now everyone wants to manipulate the system so that they never have to rebuild which teaches the STUDENT athletes the wrong values.
    While I understand that mentality at the college level and beyond it must be remembered that this is high school basketball and that kind of mentality is not what high school sports should be about.
    For those who keep throwing GDS in the mix GDS is a PRIVATE school which is a completed different animal than a PUBLIC school.

  16. Nighthawk fan you are exactly right. Coach Furlough has had great success by doing it the right way and not circumventing the system.
    With her record it would be easy to try and attract players.
    Looking at this year’s Northern team she had to know it was going to be a rebuilding year but she just tries to work with the players who live in her district and not poach players from other teams which is unethical even if loopholes are used to make it meet the guidelines.
    She saw firsthand the nightmare it created with the boys program about 8 years ago.

  17. I like cheese with my “whine” Hold tonto. When you put down students transferring, you ARE disparaging the parents and the students. Typical loser, you want it both ways: Excuses for what seems “right” to you but condemnation for what seems “wrong” to you. What is exciting is to see a program like Ragsdale and Central’s girl’s teams get competitive. When one team dominates an area for so long, it gets old playing for second. Get a basketball lobotomy (better look it up) because you are part of the problem, not part of the solution for sports in Guilford County.

  18. Hoops junkie, or should we just refer to you as Coach?

    The fact that you think the parents and players who make the best of their home school and exemplify integrity by staying in their district are part of the problem just truly shows how out of touch and delusional you are.

  19. Stop wasting your time WhirlieTom. Words like integrity mean nothing to someone like hoops junkie.
    Hoops makes that obvious with the posts.
    Hoops wants open enrollment so there are not as many steps to take to recruit kids to a school as it is a pain to have to follow rules.

  20. @WhirlieTom let me ask you a question. Did you have a kid that got cut from one of the Gater teams or something. You sound like a parent whose kid didn’t make it. If that is the case just get in the gym with her and stop crying. Why the HELL do you care who plays where. My question would also be would you talk that same talk if you were to speak to the parents of these kids face to face?

  21. Open enrollment is coming. There is a plan being laid out in the first part of the year where each high school will have a specialty. For example Dudley may strictly concentrate on engineering. Grimsley may have Technology. Southeast will have agriculture and so on. These kids will be able to choose their high school. Its coming.

  22. Last nights game was very interesting. I thought this would be a easy win for Ragsdale…. I expected more esp. since these girls are being recruited.

  23. I agree KenBaller. With NW having so few options and Ragsdale being 9 deep Ragsdale was able to just wear Kargo and NW down at the end. I was impressed that NW was able to keep it in the 40s which was what had to happen to give them a chance.
    Weakness with Ragsdale is inside and NW exploited that last night.
    That will keep Ragsdale from winning a state championship this year but I am sure that will be rectified in the future.
    The difference maker was the young lady who played for SW last year. Without her clutch shooting NW would have won.

  24. We had our observations and now we have our conclusions…Girls basketball is very big in Guilford County and their is a passion for that basketball on the middle school level and on the high school level….

    There is a passion for girls basketball on the AAU level and the programs on that level are growing….

    I wished we could go back to old neighborhood schools, but I guess we really don’t have those neighborhoods any more..

    If men like Ralph Kitley, Mike Cunane, Tom King, Ray Kargo and others believe in the Gater programs and the Gater coaches, I have to say I have all of the respect in the world for those men and their basketball beliefs and their IQ’s…

    To really put it in perspective, if Ragsdale athletic director Brian Herndon says everything is OK with it, then I go with it…I trust Brian Herndon and if he says all is good and all details have been taken care then we have nothing really to yell about until someone finds out something different and with Brian Herndon, he puts his job and career on the line representing Ragsdale High School every day….

    I would still love to see one of those All-Sports academies in our county one day, and we will keep an eye on that…

    Several of the Ragsdale girls are in the GTCC early-college program and I have met the GTCC early-college principal Mrs. Rowland-Kitley and she runs a dedicated academic program…..

    Coach Bradford and his team won the Championship and Coach Ben Bradford coaches his girls hard and therefore young ladies want to play for him….

    But you can have the best talent in world and you have to coach them….

    You still just can’t send them out there on the court, tell them to go at it and expect them to win….

    I have always felt John Wooden of UCLA was the best coach ever at any level, excellent coach and excellent leader of men…They even said he had boosters brining players into the Pauley Pavilion illegally…

    But John Wooden had to coach Lew Alcindor, Bill Walton Sidney Wicks, Curtis Rowe, Lucious Allen, Swen Nater, Marques Johnson and all of those Bruins….

    Coach Wooden was a man of character and you know his patience was tried over and over again when he coached Bill Walton, but Coach Wooden stayed the course and got outstanding results and he was a man of faith…His faith never wavered….He was what we call a man of God…

    Ben Bradford will need to be a man of faith as well…

    These can be trying times and you know how we get through all of this????

    Go get your basketball and if you can stand up, get outside and start shooting that basketball and shoot with your kids and be glad you have them and be glad they are playing organized basketball and that they are not out on the streets searching for something else…

    This is great sport, we have some great leaders and we need to let the system carry us forward and remember what I said, Ragsdale AD Brian Herndon has put his job and his name on the line and I feel like we can trust this man and believe what he says…

    You may say I have drank the Kool Aid, but honestly, I was was drinking that sweet tea over at the Greensboro Coliseum Special Events Center….

    I know everyone’s situation is different, but this is how we see it laid out here on Saturday December 29, 2018….

    And let us long remember, the old coach and what he stood for, John Wooden(Basketball Coach UCLA Bruins)….

    **********Just a quick thought, and I seem to be full of them these days….

    A few years back the Page High School boys(basketball) had a similar situation where they had Diondre Overton come in from Southeast Guilford HS, and he is now playing football at Clemson and doing well, Jalen Seegars came in from Southern Guilford HS, and he is now playing college basketball at UNC-Asheville and doing well and Jeremy Harris came in from Northeast Guilford HS and he is now at the University of Buffalo and doing well…

    So, we see it, we work through it and we have to keep on motoring….The most important thing is the kids are doing all right and if the kids are OK and doing well, that is all you can ask for, and no matter what situation you go through, you will be better served coming through that fire….**********

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