The Friday night lights were shining again last weekend and some of the lights were so bright they continued to shine on into Saturday night. Friday we took our team to Greensboro Day School to watch the area’s #1 team in action against Christ School from Asheville. It was Homecoming 2006 and to make it exciting the Bengals fell behind by 6, 29-23 Greenies at the half. The Christ School nickname Greenies was based upon their uniform color and the Greenies may have looked green early but they got off to a very strong start against the Bengals. The halftime speech from coach Johnson caught the attention of the Bengals and they proceeded to bury the Greenies in the 3rd quarter outscoring Christ School 20-5. GDS went on to win the Homecoming event 60-44, down by 6 and then roaring back to win by 16 and in the process moving to 23-2 overall for the season.
The Bengals were led in the solid second half by the inside play of Johnny Thomas and outside it was Alan Fox, Bruce Woodall, and Brandon Davis. “Johnny Thomas”, “Johnny Thomas”, “Johnny Thomas”, the fans were chanting his name after a two-handed dunk that brought the Homecoming house down. Fox, Davis and Woodall did a fine job of working the ball with an angle approach from the perimeter and coach Johnson was very pleased with the work from Bruce Woodall in particular on this special Friday at the Dillard Athletic Center. Woodall felt the Bengals were able to really get focused in the second half and Bruce said this was really the first time the Bengals had been totally focused since back when they won the Little Four. Wins over Smith and Forsyth Country Day also came the Bengals way last week and the win over the Furies on Wednesday was especially sweet. Against FCD the Bengals were down by 10 points with only two minutes to play and they came back to win it by 1.
Big Friday by the Bengals and Big Saturday by the girls from Grimsley. The young ladies from Grimsley are becoming a very special team. The girls are young, no seniors and coach Weaver starts mostly sophomores and freshmen. The Whirlie girls destroyed Page 54-35 on Saturday night in front of a packed house at Bob Sawyer Gym. Grimsley led 28-17 at the half and then they out scored Page 15-8 in the 3rd quarter to lock down the victory. Grimsley played a suffocating defense that completely rattled Page and the defense, along with the fact that Grimsley can run the floor makes Grimsley the favorite in the Metro 4-A. Coach Darlene Joyner from Northwest Guilford was watching this one closely and I’m sure everyone in their right mind is taking notice of Grimsley now. With Trumae Lucas and Nicole Hargraves leading the way the Grimsley girls are on their way and now their season record stands at 14-1 after Saturday’s win. Brittany Nicholson, Amber Cook, Krystin Fields, Jasmine Alston, and Brittany Schaefer have all been playing hard and are the reason the Whirlies are where they are today at 14-1 and in first place in the Metro 4-A.
The Page boys snagged a win over Grimsley in the boys matchup 62-48. Grimsley just does not have the Juice to get it done this year and Shamarr Bowden is one of the area’s smoothest players but Shammar can not do it alone. Page had three men picking up pace. Shelton Carter paced the Pirates with 22 and Antoine Adams chipped in with 18. Marsharee Neely is another one of the smooth players we ahve here locally and Neely knocked down 14 points and wowed the crowd with his two hand rim rattler dunk the elicited chants of “Marsharee Neely” repeatedly from the fans.
The girls and boys races in the Metro 4-A are going to be fun to watch down the stretch. Grimsley, Northwest, High Point Central, and Page on the girls side of things and Smith, Page, and High Point Central on the boys side. On Tuesday we will look at our other teams from last weekend and lay out our top ten poll for the week. Highlights are coming for the Eastern Guilford and Ragsdale girls and we will check up on the Dudley boys and throw out the question, “Where has Rayshawn Polk been lately”? I ran into a couple of Dudley football players Saturday night at Taco Bell on MLK and it was a pleasure to speak with Keith Lee and Arturis Bryant, two fine young men, but no word from either fellow on the Polk situation. Lee and Bryant are sharpe men and they have one year of football left, so all 3-A teams, be on the lookout.