A Busy Day for Basketball at Southeast Guilford High School:The 8th Annual Rodney Clark MLK Hoops Classic/Basketball Tournament 2020 Edition

It was a busy day for high school basketball at Southeast Guilford High School, where the SEG Falcons were hosting the 8th Annual Rodney Clark Hoops Classic and here are scores from the games we attended…

Finals:
Southeast Guilford girls 67, West Forsyth 54…(Overtime)
SEG girls 2019 Defending 3-A State Champions and West Forsyth girls 2019 Defending 4-A State Champions….
SEG now (16-0)/West Forsyth(10-5)

                Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	OT1	Final
West Forsyth	7	16	14	15	2	54
SEGHS	       11	17	13	11	15	67

Dudley girls 54, East Forsyth 48
Dudley(11-60/East Forsyth(8-8)

                Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Final
Reidsville	11	19	18	18	66
West Forsyth	10	11	16	20	57

Grimsley boys 60, Person County 40
Grimsley boys(11-5)/Person(5-10)

                Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Final
Person	        10	5	19	6	40
Grimsley	14	11	14	21	60

Southeast Guilford boys 80, Bethany Community School 41
SEG boy(5-11)

Earlier in the day they had the Grimsley girls vs. Reidsville and the Reidsville boys vs. West Forsyth and we will try and get you finals on those games and more details coming up on our games above….
Reidsville girls 65, Grimsley 54
Reidsville girls(9-3/Grimsley girls(5-11)

                Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Final
Grimsley	11	15	15	13	54
Reidsville	14	13	14	24	65

Reidsville boys 66, West Forsyth 57
Reidsville boys(10-2)/West Forsyth boys(1-16)

                Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Final
Reidsville	11	19	18	18	66
West Forsyth	10	11	16	20	57

Southeast Guilford girls 67, West Forsyth 54 in Overtime
End of 1st Q:seg 11, West Forsyth 7…Halftime:SEG 28, West Forsyth 23…End of 3rd Q:SEG 41, West Forsyth 37…End of Regulation:SEG 52, West Forsyth 52…Overtime Final:SEG 67, West Forsyth 54

SEG scoring:Raven Preston 30 points, Kennedi Simmons 12 points, Sydney Roberts 9 points, Nyree Bell 6 points, Jessica Hopkins 5 points, Shunte Bethea 5 points…
West Forsyth scoring:Shakira Baskerville 22 points, Caroline Johnson 7 points, Maddie Scheier 13 points, Brianna Shillito 6 points,
Alana Gary 6 points…

**********Raven Preston and Kennedi Simmons are one of the best one-two guard combos in the state…Simmons is stronger this season and Preston is more versatile and quicker….Both are like wing forwards/point forwards, with all that they can do…And Preston jumps center and out-jumps pretty much everyone she goes up against this season and she is really just learning what all she can do…And if you need somebody to take over the game and run the floor, either in half, or in full, Simmons is the one to do it for you…She has the experience and the leadership qualities…All of the Falcons are one year older and one year wiser and you can see the improvement in all of them…Bethea, Hopkins, Roberts, and this new kid Bell, they all are ready to go and watch out for young Mykensie Harris, coming off of that Falcon bench, she/the freshman, has a promising future ahead of her and Raven Preston’s younger sister is leading the JV team at SEG in scoring, and she is just a freshman and will be varsity-bound by the end of the season/come playoff time…Everybody pretty much back for SEG on varsity this season, with the exception of Kristen Roberts, now seeing maximum minutes for the women of Guilford College… Maddie Scheier from West Forsyth is very tough little guard and she helped her WF Titans knock off previously Unbeaten Ragsdale, one year ago today on this same very court, and she almost got the daily-double as West nearly dethroned SEG in regulation this afternoon, but West was no match for Unbeaten Southeast Guilford(16-0), in Overtime…The game was tied at 52-52 with 17.5 seconds left in regulation and the SEG Falcons had the basketball, they could not find the winner, but this just shows how tight this game was down the stretch…

West had two tall post players that were tough and in the paint, with Baskerville and Johnson and one of them, Shakira Baskerville, was very tough from three-point range too…Baskerville with three 3-pointers in the ball game, and all three of them came in regulation, and if you study the final score, SEG took West Forsyth apart in OT, out-scoring the WF Titans, 15-2…SEG Falcons are for real again, in 2020….**********

Dudley girls 54, East Forsyth 48
End of 1st Q:East Forsyth 14, Dudley 9…Halftime:Dudley 26, East Forsyth 22…End of 3rd Q:Dudley 41, East Forsyth 31…Final:Dudley 54, East Forsyth 48
Dudley scoring:Marissa Wooten 12 points, Qunzia Fulmore 12 points, Isis Whitfield 7 points, Kyra Rhymer 7 points, Williams 5 points, Powe 5 points, Baldwin 4 points, Howie 2 points…
East Forsyth scoring:Axtell 11 points, Galloway 10 points, Spruill 9 points, Long 8 points, Hall 4 points, N’diaye 4 points, Simes 3 points…

**********Fulmore strong and aggressive on the inside for Dudley today, while the Panthers got a great outside effort from Marissa Wooten who hit two key 3’s and both Wooten and Fulmore were going after and winning the loose balls today, and that was a team theme, get the 50-50 ball and maintain possession…Coach Frank McNeil got a very solid effort from his Panthers on this MLK Holiday and with Wooten a junior and Fulmore, a sophomore, we should see both of them next year for the 9th Annual Rodney Clark Hoops Classic, at Southeast Guilford High School….East Forsyth Eagles’ coach got one heck of a hustle effort from his little guard #10 Monay Galloway today…Galloway came ready to play on this Monday and her hustle was prime time for the EF Eagles..This was the first time we had seen an Aaron Grier-coached team play and we have been seeing his basketball info coming into our site for many years…Aaron Grier doing a fine job now, of leading the East Forsyth Eagles girl’s basketball team.**********

Grimsley boys 60, Person 40
End of 1st Q:Grimsley 14, Person 10…Halftime:Grimsley 25, Person 15…End of 3rd Q:Grimsley 39, Person 34…Final:Grimsley 60, Person 40…
Grimsley scoring:Ahmil Flowers 16 points, Daniel Cooper 14 points, Jayden Watlington 8 points, Ronan Martinek-Jenne 7 points, Travis Shaw 6 points, Luke Jenkins 2 points, Tyler Albright 2 points, Jordan Wall 2 points, Everett Davenport 2 points, Lawson Albright 1 point…
Person scoring:Tae Bailey 13 points, Dre Newman 8 points, Tymaurean Outlaw 6 points, Jaylen Black 5 points, Ridge Clayton 4 points, Jaisel Bumphus 2 points, Zion Norwood 2 points…

**********If they had one, and they didn’t but we still got to see one, Grimsley’s Ahmil Flowers won the unofficial “Slam Dunk Contest” for today’s Rodney Clark Hoops Classic and if I have any detractors who do not agree with this tally, I do want to hear from you…Flowers had at least four ‘prime time’ dunks and they all went home with force and Ahmil Flowers is our 2020 Rodney Clark Hoops Classic Slam Dunk Champion…The work turned by the Grimsley Whirlies senior leader wasn’t for show, but it did pay off to the tune of a Whirlies win…Flowers a “Winner” and in second place we would have to go with the dunk by the Southeast Guilford Falcons’ Jake Jenkins-Cowart and the “Alley-Oop Dunk Dunk by Cowart was the first of this type by the Southeast Guilford Falcons, since 2011…That made for an historic dunk, but Flowers still took the unofficial/Official 2020 Slam Dunk Title…

One of the lob dunk passes that came to Flowers came with ease, and it came from the biggest man, size-wise, on the Whirlies team…Travis Shaw, at 6’6/315 pounds, served up some beautiful passes today, and his Whirlie teammates were the benefactors…Shaw may have only scored six points on two field goals and two free throws, but the “Big Man” had his passing game on, and he had at least 9 assists in the game and his total may have climbed to 10 assists…Shaw goes out his way to make these key passes and you can call it part of his A, B, and C game…His passes are a work of art, and loves to throw that blind pass, which will find a wide-open teammate and those passes also blow right past/by the defenders and they never see the pass, as it goes right to Shaw’s open fellow-Whirlies/teammates…Shaw’s passes might be the strongest part of his overall game, and for the fans, they can just sit back and wait for one of those passes to go sailing to someone from Grimsley, who is about to score an easy two, or three…Daniel Cooper is solid junior scorer for Grimsley and he has also been a regular beneficiary of those Shaw passes……Jayden Watlington is a steady sophomore guard for Grimsley, and he has been doing a nice job of running the point for the Whirlies…**********

Southeast Guiflord boys 80, Bethany Community School 41
End of 1st Q:SEG 19, Bethany 6…Halftime:SEG 41, Bethany 20…End of 3rd Q:SEG 67, Bethany 37…Final:SEG 80, Bethany 41
Southeast Guilford scoring: Taj Raleigh 16 points, Jake Jenkins-Cowart 13 points, Cody Fuller 12 points, Stephens 8 points, Nick Green 6 points, Xavier Byrd 6 points, Rashad Carter 6 points, Zachary Friday 5 points, Nick Caldwell 3 points, Hunter Seagraves 2 points, Benjamin Higgins 2 points…
Bethany Community School scoring: Graham Crouch 11 points, Tristan Smith 10 points, Jatavious Brim 6 points, Russ Bowers 5 points, Mekkhi Lee 4 points, Reese Hubbard 2 points, Tyler Maxwell 2 points, Elias Hinson 1 point…

**********First game we have ever seen from the Bethany Community School Wolves…The Wolves have a strong learning curve and these kids have nowhere to go but up…SEG was able to run the floor in this game and do pretty much anything they wanted to do in the early stages of the contest….Bethany tightened up their defense as the game moved along, and with Southeast Guilford substituting freely/liberally it created quite the sense of “who has who”….SEG could change their lineup quicker than Roy Williams changes his facial expressions these days, and we mean his ‘mean looks’…This was our first time seeing Brent Hinson coaching his Wolves and it is always exciting to watch a coach as he works to build and put together a new team….Bethany Community School will try to be around like Piedmont Classical did, and I’m sure they have a 3-5 year plan, on how they want to build their basketball program under the leadership of Coach Hinson, a former Dudley Panthers’ assistant coach, and he also has previous experience as a head coach on the middle school level in Guilford County, and I think was the head boys coach at Guilford Middle School… Bethany Community School is also led by their athletic director Sonny Gann, the former head baseball coach at Northwest Guilford High School…

The alley-oop dunk by Jake Jenkins-Cowart drew a long burst of applause from the SEG Falcons faithful, and when the fans were informed that this was the first dunk of this type since 2011, they all stood in unison and yelled WHAT, and the public address announcer/PA man, replied, I’m not kidding, and then the crowd began to believe that he was telling the truth, and that they had just witnessed a special piece of SEG Falcon history….SEG got a pure flow of basketball expertise from Cowart, Taj Raleigh, and Cody Fuller on Monday night and we really want to see if Southeast can make tonight’s/Monday’s success carry over to the Falcons’ next game, at home on Friday night versus the Northwest Guilford Vikings..

SEG boys and girls facing NWG on Friday, night in what we might one day be calling the Fred Whitfield Gymnasium on the Southeast Guilford High School campus…Just an idea and does this idea strike a cord with anyone??? Fred is an outstanding graduate of Southeast Guilford High School and he now works as the President/CEO of the Charlotte Hornets…Fred played high school basketball at Southeast Guilford and later played college hoops for UNCG and for Campbell University…The man has a very full basketball background, and we know it always pays to name your gym or football stadium after a former teacher or coach, or even a principal, but in the case of SEG with no real powerhouse in men’s basketball over the years, maybe we need to make an exception and name the Southeast Guilford High School gym after the Falcons’ most successful basketball person ever, Fred Whitfield….

You could go with the Fred Whitfield Gymnasium and come back with the Jim Clontz Court, in honor of Coach Clontz, who had a wealth of success coaching girls basketball at SEG back in the 80’s, 90’s and early 2000’s…

Just a couple of ideas to chew on, and you never know, maybe we need to hold on and wait, we may have a building name nominee in making in current SEG girls coach Rachel Clark…If SEG wins the 3-A girls title this season, that would be two straight for Coach Clark and she could be on verge of another in 2021 with Raven Preston and other Falcons coming back in the fold/nest….

These ideas are to get you thinking and they might just get you talking, and when I get ideas like these I have to get them typed up quickly before I forget them…Most of these ideas I come up with are fairly plausible and many of them eventually come about, and in the end, they might have you asking what is this all about????

You may say, we don’t need to be talking about things like this, but maybe we do….If the wheels are turning, we want to be there when the rubber hits the road…And if the wheels are turning, it shows we all are thinking and we are not growing stale, we continue to come up with new ideas and that keeps the fires burning….

In closing today/tonight, we will take/borrow a page from the Southeast Guilford MLK Hoops Classic mini-program and for those who didn’t get a chance to get down to Southeast Guilford today, here is what this day was all about…..

This was the 8th Annual Rodney Clark MLK Day Hoops Classic. This special day was in memory of the late Coach Rodney Clark, who taught and coached at Southeast Guilford from 1999-2002. Coach Clark firmly believed in the importance of community/family and devoted his time and energy to better the lives of countless students and athletes. Coach Clark lost his battle with lung cancer on August 31, 2003, but his legacy still lives on. For each admission ticket sold on Monday January 20, 2020, $1.00 will be donated to the American Cancer Society. Southeast Guilford High School thanks you for joining them on this special day and for donating to a cause near and dear to their hearts! #FalconFightNeverDies

++++++++++Every year we tend to write quite a bit about this day at Southeast Guilford High School, and we always have a lot to say about this event…I guess that goes to show that this day, and this event at SEG, mean a lot to us too…It is sort of funny, but every year on this day, it is very cold outside….But what does that matter, we are inside watching basketball and seeing some of the stars of the future, and coming up with ideas that might be a part of our athletic fabric for many years to come.++++++++++