Panthers Like Calling Greensboro and Greenville Home

The Dudley boys did it again Saturday afternoon and now they will be playing for the State 3-A Boys Basketball Championship for the 3rd consecutive year. The Panthers defeated Northeast Guilford 81-58 to make their way to the Dean E. Smith Center in Chapel Hill. Dudley will be going for back-to-back state titles and their 3rd state crown in 10 years. This will be Dudley’s fifth trip to the finals during that same ten year span.

Dudley now has made 7 straight visits to Greenville, home of the ECU Pirates and the Panthers are finding the Williams Arena inside the Minges Coliseum to be their home away from home. During the seven year run in Greenville, Dudley has come away with 4 Regional Titles. Dudley has become the most successful public school for boys in the entire state of North Carolina.

Dudley’s success over the decade can be attributed to solid coaching and excellent leadership from the Panther coaching staff. When the state leaders are talking about closing Dudley and Smith High Schools they need to take a first-hand look at the job the Dudley coaches are doing and maybe the Education officials will find that the Panther leaders are getting the job done, not only athletically, but the young men coming out of Dudley are moving on to bigger and better things in real-life situations.

Head coach David Price and his assistants, Everette James, Brian Seagraves, and Derrick Partee are making a difference working with the players that put on the basketball uniforms over at James B. Dudley High School. I don’t care how much talent you are blessed with there is so much more to running a team than just drawing up the plays, making game-time adjustments, and then looking up on the scoreboard to check out the final score before they shut the clock off. The Dudley players are well-behaved and very respectful and they present themselves well when they travel. This is a credit to Coach Price and his staff. The young men come from various backgrounds and not one is the same so the coaching staff is not only coaching but they are also raising these young men to a certain degree. The Dudley crew is like a family.

Dudley makes us(Greensboro) as a city, look good when they go out of town. Again it’s not only winning it’s how the team presents itself when they go on the road.

Dudley does know how to take care of business, and they did just that right after halftime on Saturday afternoon. The Panthers were only up on NEG by 2, 35-33 and then before the Rams knew what hit them Dudley was outscoring NEG 46-25 in the second half. Rashawn Polk, William Graves, and Kenny Belton all hit for 20 or more points and Belton added 11 rebounds to his MVP numbers. Josh Chavis was steady at point guard plus seniors Antonio White and Robert Johnson proved Panther Power works in the lane and around the bucket.

Northeast got outside shooting support from Sam Grooms and Guy Wilson who combined for 36 points many coming from behind the 3 point arc, but the NEG Rams got taught a hard lesson on the boards of education by Belton, Graves, Johnson, Polk, and White. Nice work by first-year coach Curtis Hunter at the NEG helm and he will have Grooms and his inside men Uzochukwu and Ohuaregbe back for at least one more year.

Let’s get behind Dudley as they go for that state title this Saturday night against the Concord Spiders at 7:30pm in Chapel Hill. Concord rocked their opponent Parkwood 85-53 to get to the Smith Center.

The Dudley girls came up a bit short of Chapel Hill falling to unbeaten Wilson Beddingfield 56-53 on Saturday. Coach Britton and her young ladies have so much to be proud of after their 26-3 run this year. Sierra Little will be back next season, so the Lady Panthers will have to keep on doing it little by Little.

The Bishop McGuiness girls will go for the 1-A championship after their huge Regional Final victory over four-time titlest Thomasville. The Bulldogs saw the Villians end the Bulldog era 60-44 in Winston-Salem this past weekend. Bishop will face Southeast Halifax for the 1-A crown. This is McGuiness’ first season of public school competition. The BMHS Villians are 30-0 and SEHS stands at 23-0.

A few quick hitters from the diamond include Page shutting out Northeast Guilford 5-0 last Friday afternoon. It was the Page Pirate pitching that proved to be the deciding factor,and it was pretty darn cold out there watching that late-afternoon game. Ragsdale saw their record move to 4-0 after 2 big wins on Saturday. Trevor Mullins has been the Man on the Mound for the Tigers. Southeast Guilford evened it’s mark at 1-1 when the Falcons crushed East Davidson 10-3 behind the hard hitting Alan Vereno, Justin Venable, Dustin Lineback and Austin Moyer. Cameron Cockman got the win for SEG. It’s road trip time for the Coach Johnny Smith and his side-kick Justin Smith as they follow the Northwest Guilford Vikings to North Forsyth on Tuesday to watch the Vikings go at it with the Vikings. The Smith’s will be watching phenom Adam Johnson of North Forsyth a young man that is poised to be a superstar on the hill (91 mph fastball) and at the plate. We will have a run-down from the coach later in the week.

In HS Wrestling we need to mention Jacob Creed, Jon Bullins, Ryan Powell, and Ian Coggin. Creed of Ragsdale and Bullins of McMichael are state champs and Coggin plus Powell performed beyond the limits on the mats at the State Tournament.

Doug Cockman not to be confused with AP writer Doug Doughty will be our man on the scene at the Men’s ACC TOURNEY. Log in to greensborosports.com throughout the week to be right on top of all the HOOPS Action with Doug Cockman from the Greensboro Coliseum.