News and Record HSXtra names Girls All-Area Basketball Team, with Kennedi Simmons(Southeast Guilford High School) Player of the Year

I told the kid last Saturday night in Chapel Hill that she was the Guilford County Girls High School Basketball Player of the Year and she said, “Oh Really”…I said the same thing again in my follow-up post to the SEG Falcon girls winning the NCHSAA 3-A State Championship over Cuthbertson, and in that GreensboroSports.com post, I said it at least three times, “Kennedi Simmons is your Guilford County High School Girls Player of the Year” and I doubt that anybody is listening to me, but I have had these hunches lately and most of them have turned out to be true/right….

Just got word today, by way of Joe Sirera and the News and Record’s HSXtra site, that Kennedi Simmons has been named their All-Area Player of the Year for girls high school basketball…

Here are the numbers on Kennedi Simmons from Joe Sirera’s post at the HSXtra:
Kennedi Simmons Southeast Guilford High School…..
• Averaged 18 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals per game while shooting 50 percent from the field for a team that finished 28-3 and won the Mid-Piedmont 3-A Conference regular-season title.

CLICK HERE to see all of the girls who made the All-Area teams and here is one more piece for you and this may be our last words of wisdom on high school basketball for you, this season…

Most Improved Player in the State of North Carolina this past season for the girls playing high school basketball, and she may take the award for all boys and girls and the Most Improved Award goes to a Northwest Guilford Viking, and that would be 6’6 Megan Harkey…There was a time when this kid could not get up and down the court without nearly falling down, and I don’t have her final numbers in front of me, but she had to be right at 6-8 points a game in scoring and at least 8-9 rebounds a game….The improvement we have seen in this kid is unreal, and if she keeps on working like she has been doing, the sky is the limit….The story of Big Meg Harkey is some kind of conversion story, and I have seen her go from a kid who wondered what she was doing out there on that basketball court, to a kid that at times, well, she can take over a game on both ends of the floor…(The blocked shots help make her a force in the post on defense.)

Had to get that in there and I was on the money about Simmons(SEG), mainly because as the season wore on, she continued to step up her game and do things sort of like when a player just goes off and they are in this zone…Simmons hit that zone, somewhere around mid-February and she just kept on moving her game up to higher levels….She would take off to bucket going right and finish smoothly on the other side/left side…She hit her threes, she hit her frees/free throws and she was taking it to the hole, going coast-to-coast….Not sure if I have seen one player who just went off for about a four-week stretch like Simmons did, but she did it….

Can’t say enough about Simmons and Harkey and the job those two kids did this season…Guilford County/All-Area Player of the Year and should be First Team All-State Kennedi Simmons, from Southeast Guilford High School, and the Most Improved Player in the State, Megan Harkey, from Northwest Guilford High School, and the best part of it all is, they are both from right here in Guilford County…

And the sky is the limit for these two kids(Simmons and Harkey), and that should be the case for all of the kids on this N&R All-Area Team, from Guilford County…

It should be noted that we followed both the girls and the boys teams this season, but we went on a hunch in the playoffs, with the Southeast Guilford girls, going with four radio games for the Falcons and one game where we were on the post of SEG at GreensboroSports.com and truth be told, we were broadcasting the SEG games and then coming back and writing up the games here on the website, so we had first-hand radio coverage and website coverage of their historical playoff run…

What a year and hard to believe it is all behind us now, but now we can all go out and go ALL OUT for the Wofford men in their game vs. Kentucky on Saturday…

5 thoughts on “News and Record HSXtra names Girls All-Area Basketball Team, with Kennedi Simmons(Southeast Guilford High School) Player of the Year

  1. Mr. Durham and greensborosports.com – Thank you for recognizing Megan and her amazing accomplishments this high school season. We are extremely proud of her. She has excelled at proving that hard work, determination and shear will, will get you past any obstacle in life.
    She and Kennedi Simmons will be playing together again this AAU Season on the Carolina Dynasty Diamonds team. Should be a lot of fun to watch! – Thank you – Megan’s parents

  2. Must be something in the water over at the Carolina Diamonds’ gym…By the way, who coaches that team, we need to give them a shout out too….

    We know of Ben Bradford and his girls team, Kristen Shelton and her teams, we also know of Delaney Rudd and his Phoenix teams from over the years and now we need to know who coaches the Carolina Diamonds…
    Ray Kargo was a good one back in his time too, coaching the girls….

    Simmons on the run and Harkey in the post, that team should be one that can be tough to tame…

    All of the kids got my attention each year, but another kid that is still fairly young and can go, go, go, go, Full Throttle, is JeBria Fullwood…That kid is also one of my first-teamers, just on my team and not taking anything away from the News and Record’s work… They did a great job as always, and Joe Knows his hoops…

    Fullwood is nothing but Full Throttle and I saw her in some games last year, and that kid is just waiting to explode…They may have to Throttle her down…I saw where the former Kernodle Cougar Hailey Blackwell got the Player of the Year in the GDS conference…Good job and Congrats to her…

    My old pal Cayla King(NWG) was injured much of the year, but she still had a good/productive year…I remember her back when she was just a freshman and all you got out her back in those was a smile and a large grin, but she has grown up now and is leaving us…

    Reagan Kargo, with mouth open and eyes wide-open has those head-fakes down and I used to use them too, until I got a crick in my neck….Not sure how to spell crick, but I guess that is it…Sure not creek, anyway, I hope….Kargo’s got the best head-fakes if you are willing to buy and she may be the best of the Kid Kargo Show….

    Reagan Maynard from Page impressed me this year too, excellent shooter and gets the job done in leading her team….Kristen Roberts from SEG knows NO FEAR and she is a super team leader and she is not fazed by the Big Stage/Big Games….

    The Ragsdale girls just got the dust stirred up this year and with Diamond Monroe back and healthy next year they should be able to gain ground, after stirring up that dust this season….I will take Mariah Frazier as a top defender, any day of the way….Joe, as in Joe Frazier, has nothing on this kid…..

    Young ones we are waiting to see break out include Kate Jones at GDS, strong shooter from the outside and makes her inside shots, and she has range and that is a credit to her shooting strength…Destoine Tisdale(GHS) is my keeper…When she gets her game totally together, and she will, she is going to blow you away, wait and see, it is just a matter of maybe one more year of seasoning under Coach Chris Huntley at Grimsley….

    That is a lot of the kids and we did like that maturity of Thalia Carter at NWG, she can handle the pressure and she will not back down from a challenge….

    Raven Preston(SEG) is maybe just 1 year away from being the top girls high school basketball player in Guilford County…There is nothing this kid can’t do…Shots, inside-outside, foul line, run-the-court, defense with poke-aways from behind being her specialty this season and she also can rebound and block shots…She was a freshman playing like a junior or senior this season, and as soon is Kennedi Simmons, has graduated from Southeast Guilford HS, Captain Preston, will be calling the Falcon team to action….

    More names, well we have seen a ton, and watch out because SEG can be right back where they were this year, with the young Harris girl from SEG Middle ready to take over at PG and Raven Preston’s little sister, will not stand back and let her big sister get all the pub/publicity….Coach Mark Dunker, and he can stuff it, he is sending Coach Rachel Clark some ready-made players from SEG Middle to SEG High School…

    We could go on all night, but they have that Triad All-Stars Game early edition at GDS tonight and we need to head out to NWG, for the NWG-Page baseball finish, right after the basketball game/scrimmage…

    Game On/Play On……

    And how about this close:
    “A Hearty Howdy to the Harkeys”…

    Sort of the corn side, but in all of those years of pulling and shucking corn, I never found an ear, I didn’t like…

  3. Yes, I am familiar with Coach Carter…

    I didn’t see enough Dudley games this season to give them a good breakdown….Had one Dudley radio game and that was Dudley at Smith….

    First time in over 25 years we did not do a radio game from Dudley High School…No dis on Dudley, early on, there was not that much big happening there…Then the girls made their run and the Dudley boys got tougher too….

    I promoted Coach Frank McNeil all year long as the Guilford County Coach of the Year for the job he did with his girls and as the season wore on, Kim Furlough at Northern Guilford and Rachel Clark at SEG had to join that same conversation….

    I think the real story at Dudley this year for the girls was coach Frank McNeil…Symphony Jackson had a very good senior season and I just saw her playing tonight/Friday in the Triad All-Stars Game scrimmage at the Greensboro Day School…

    Marissa Wooten had a fine year for Dudley and the Fulmore kid showed improvement from December at The HAECO, until late February in the playoffs…..

    Still think the real Dudley story for the girls this season, is Coach Frank McNeil and the job he did leading his Lady Panthers……………

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