The Super 17 becomes the Mighty Nine in honor of Jeff Carlton

This week’s High School basketball polls will drop from the Super 17 including all of the Guilford County schools and our selected independents down to a Mighty Nine poll in honor of News and Record writer Jeff Carlton, who passed away on Thursday after his long bout with cancer. Jeff used to do a Lucky 13 poll but lately the poll had become a Mighy Nine. With conference titles on the line tonight and Saturday here are this week’s polls.

Boys:
#1)Greensboro Day(29-3) Beat Charlotte Country Day 68-47 on Thursday, play Charlotte Christian tonight in the semifinals of the State 3-A Independent Schools Tournament at Raleigh Ravenscroft.
#2)Dudley(22-2) Defeated Western Guilford twice and also topped Bartlett Yancey 88-45 on the way to the Triad 3-A finals vs. Northeast Guilford at NEG tonight.
#3)Grimsley(21-3) Took care of Smith last Friday and knocked off NWG Wednesday in the Metro semis and now meet Page for the Metro title Saturday at 3pm in the Bob Sawyer Gym.
#4)Ragsdale(22-4) Beat Asheboro 70-53 last Friday, rolled over Southeast 85-70 Monday, then lost to the same Asheboro team 59-56 Wednesday to fall out of the conference tournament.
#5)High Point Andrews(17-6) Took care of WS Parkland and WS Carver, take on WS Reagan tonight in tourney semis.
#6)Northeast Guilford(18-8) Stopped Northern Guilford 67-65 on Wednesday to set up tonight’s Triad 3-A finals at Northeast. This will be a rematch of last year’s title game which featured Kenny Belton and Josh Chavis from Dudley and Mezie Uzochukwu from NEG.
#7)Northern Guilford(18-8) Defeated Western Alamance and Rockingham County, then lost the big one to NEG and will be off tonight, awaiting next week’s sectionals.
#8)Page(15-11) Did what they had to do beating NWG, HPC, and East Forsyth. Now face Grimlsey in the championship game Saturday afternoon.
#9)Eastern Guilford(14-11) Lost to Reidsville in the North State 2-A conference semifinals.

Girls:
#1)Grimsley(25-0) The Whirlies stopped Smith last Friday night, meeet NWG in Metro semis tonight.
#2)Ragsdale(21-3) Defeated Asheboro last Friday and then beat Trinity in the tournament semifinals and face Southeast Guilford for the Mid-Piedmont 3-A title this evening at Asheboro.
#3)Page(19-4) Topped NWG 65-61 last Friday to earn #2 seed in the Metro and meet HPC tonight in the semis of the tournament at Grimsley.
#4)Southeast Guilford(22-4) Stopped Randleman last Friday and Eastern Randolph 64-52 Wednesday in the tournament and now meet Ragsdale for the first-place trophy tonight.
#5)TIE Eastern Guilford(18-6) and Northeast Guilford(19-6) EG beat West Stokes now faces #1 Reidsville in the North State 2-A conference finals at Reidsville tonight. NEG beat Bartlett Yancey twice and bumped off Morehead 39-35 in the Triad 3-A semis and now meet Rockingham County for the title at NEG tonight.
#7)Dudley(18-6) Beat Western Guilford last Friday and then again on Tuesday in the tournament but lost to Rockingham County 56-43 last night in the tourney semis.
#8)Northwest Guilford(18-6) Lost to Page and ended Smith’s season in the Metro quarterfinals, now face #1 Grimsley tonight.
#9)High Point Wesleyan(25-7) Defeated Durham Academy 48-25 in the quarterfinals of the NCISAA 3-A tournamenet and will play Charlotte Providence today in the semis.

*****This is still a lot of work even doing it Jeff’s way and with newpapers from Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in front of me there remains much to be learned. There will be a load of conference tournament games tonight and then more games on Saturday. Did anybody play last night? Not really, because the Guilford County School System said no activities starting after 6pm and most of the games were do to start right at 6. No games, right?

Not really, because out at Northeast Guilford they moved the start times up to 4pm Thursday afternoon and still got both girl’s games in. NEG beat Morehead 39-35 and Rockingham County upset Dudley 56-43. By playing the games on Thursday afternoon the Triad 3-A conference was able to stay on schedule and they will have their finals tonight with the NEG girls meeting Rockingham County at 6pm and the Dudley boys facing NEG at 7:30 for the title.

While most of us were wondering what was going on, they played the games in the afternoon and still got them in. Did the change in the start times effect the girls and were the parents/fans able to get there in time to see the kids play? Interesting thoughts……..*****