Metro 4-A Conference Finals
BOYS
Grimsley 80, Ragsdale 78
Grimsley(23-3)/Ragsdale(19-6)
End of First Quarter:Ragsdale 25, Grimsley 23….Halftime:Ragsdale 39, Grimsley 36…End of Third Quarter:Ragsdale 57, Grimsley 51…Final:Grimsley 80, Ragsdale 78
WE ARE THE METRO 4 A CONFERENCE TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONS!!!
Grimsley – 80
Ragsdale – 78??? pic.twitter.com/ZCuF9KBQt2
— Whirliehoops (@whirliehoops) February 19, 2022
Grimsley scoring:Jayden Watlington 25 pts, Jordan Wall 25 pts, Alex Taylor 10 pts, Tyler Albright 8 pts, Zacch Wiggins 8pts Marshall Uber 4pts
Ragsdale scoring:Jah Saigo 31 pts., Jaylen Williams 16, Kobe Parker 9, Ron Jones 6, Andrew Siler 4
Excellent work turned in by Jordan Wall and Jaylen Watlington from Grimsley, and solid help from all of their teammates on Friday night, at Northern Guilford….Wall is small, but Wall is big…One of the smallest players on the floor most of the time, but this young man has NO fear, and he takes the basketball to the hole against anybody that is willing to try and stop him, and chances are that they will not stop Jordan Wall….NO FEAR from Wall, he is going to take the ball to hole, and he is going to finish….
Jayden Watlington is very smooth as a guard and he plays big too…Watlington is very confident that his Whirlies can make a decent amount of noise in the upcoming NCHSAA playoffs…Watlington likes his team’s chances, with the Whirlies that are surrounding him out there on the basketball court…Watlington tells us that this Grimsley team is special, and as soon as he met his teammates a few years back, he knew this was going to be a special group of basketball players, that can do great things…
Jah Saigo was leading Ragsdale toward victory until he got injured late in the game, and then he had to come out of the game…We have said this before, and we will say it again, Saigo has a very high motor, and he keeps it running every minute that he is out there on that basketball court…Thirty-one points for Saigo on Friday night, and he could have had more, if he could have been in the game longer, but his injury forced him to sit down for extended minutes, in the second half, and his injury came right around crunch time, as Grimsley was getting back into the game, and starting to take over the basketball game…
Quite the showcase event tonight, at the Metro 4-A Conference Finals, inside the Northern Guilford High School gymnasium…
GIRLS
Northern Guilford 64, Southwest Guilford 39
NG(25-0)/SWG(19-4)
End of First Quarter:NG 16, SWG 7…Halftime:NG 34, SWG 19…End of Third Quarter:NG 46, SWG 30…Final:NG 64, SWG 49
64-39. @jasminenumber05 and @NGHSWBK are 25-0 and conference regular and tournament champs. @jasminenumber05 dropped her high school career high of 25 in the win! @CoachBanghart @exdunker @_CoachKenney @CGBR27 @InsiderExposure @CarolinaGHoops @Mindy_McCarthy3 @gsosports
— Jarvis Harris (@jharrisphotog) February 19, 2022
NG scoring:Jasmine ‘Jazzy’ Harris 27 points, Lizzie Gram 14, Jadyn Newsome 6, Laurel Zlotkowski 6, Avery Burnham 6, Malena Delisa 3, Christina Delisa 2
Southwest Guilford scoring:Ally Guglielmo 11 points, Courtney Taylor 8, Jocelyn Foust 6, Laila Bush 6, Corynn Perkins 5, Aja Hairston 2, Tykiah Freeman 1
Jasmine “Jazzy” Harris, from Northern Guilford HS, is one of those players that you can watch play basketball all day long…And from what I can tell by following her on Twitter the past couple of years, she is working on her basketball game from sunup to sundown…Working on her game all day long, and into the night…You can tell she loves the game of basketball, and the game of basketball is loving her back…I have been following Jasmine since she was back in the sixth grade, and back when she was playing for the Northern Guilford Middle School..She has at least two State Championship rings, after serving as the young manager for the NG Nighthawks 3-A State Champion basketball teams…Her older sister Janelle Harris was on those teams, and Jazzy was following the Nighthawk girls back in those days, and now she is leading the Nighthawks to an Undefeated season so far, with the Northern Guilford girls sitting pretty, right at (25-0) on the season…
In the game on Friday, for the Metro 4-A Girls Title, Jazzy was taking the ball to the basket, she was hitting outside shots, and she was making pinpoint passes, and those passes set her teammates up for easy two’s/baskets…And oh, by the way, Jasmine was playing bulldog defense on the SWG Cowgirls all night long…Wall and Watlington Players of the Game for the Champion Grimsley boys, and Jazzy Harris, the Player of the Game for the Northern Guilford Nighthawk girls…Harris is really starting to turn her game up, and beginning to show that she can be the one, that can take over the game…
She can be out working some mornings before sunrise in the Summertime, and she will hoisting and moving BIG tractor tires to get stronger, and then she will do her running, and then she hits the dribbling skill sets, and on she goes, putting the time in to make her game better, and she likes it…Yes, the kid we used to call “Little Harris”, she likes the hard work, because she has learned that the hard work pays off…Harris is busting it, and she was busting for key buckets on Friday, in the Championship Game…
My prediction is that this kid will keep improving and there are no boundaries that can hold her game back….She began to explode on Friday night, and that came from her spin moves in the lane, while maintaining her constant dribble, and then she was finishing at the basket…Jazzy Harris is a candidate for Player of the Year, in the Metro 4-A Conference, and she has some very good teammates backing her up in Christina Delisa, Lizzy Gram, Jadyn Newsome, Laurel Grace Zlotkowski, and many more…This NG girls team is very deep, and we see them going deep into the playoffs….Abby Mulry was away Friday night, on a scholarship trip to N.C. State, in Raleigh, but she will be back with the team for the playoffs next week…..The Newsome girls, Jadyn and Katlyn, their mother used to play for the N.C. State Wolfpack, back in the day, so mother Newsome is bringing a wealth of knowledge to the NG girls’ Nighthawk coaching staff…
Nighthawks on the move at (25-0), and when a team has gone this far and done this well, you need to celebrate it..
$$$$$$$$$$ If you are so inclined to do so, and why not give it a whirl, like a Whirlie, or a Nighthawk??? You can listen back to the Friday night games on GreensboroSports Radio…Game time, is any time, when you are listening back to GreensboroSports Radio…We interviewed Jazzy Harris, after the win by the NG Nighthawk girls, we spoke with Grimsley coach Darren Corbett, plus Grimsley guards Jordan Wall and Jayden Watlington, after the Whirlies win over the Ragsdale Tigers…Check it all out, and the game action is there for you too, all there for you, on playback now, on GreensboroSports Radio…
Mid-State 3-A Tournament
BOYS
Smith 66, Dudley 65 Overtime
Smith(22-5)/Dudley(20-8)
from Doug Mead with a Special to the News and Record, from Greensboro.com:
DOUG MEAD Special to the News & Record
WINSTON-SALEM — NayShaun Hale scored on a follow shot at the buzzer in overtime to lift Smith past Dudley 66-65 in the final of the Mid-State 3-A Conference Tournament Friday night at Atkins High School.
It was the fourth meeting of the season between these rivals, with the Golden Eagles winning them all.
Both teams will play in the first round of the NCHSAA 3-A playoffs on Tuesday night.
++++++++++Four wins versus the Dudley Panthers on the season, with three of the games going into Overtime, that is no easy task, and we all need to say, “Great job by Smith Coach Derek Partee, and his Smith Golden Eagles”…++++++++++
GIRLS
Smith 59, Rockingham County 51
Smith(25-2)/Rockingham County(20-4)
**********Congratulations to the Smith Golden Eagles on their outstanding season…**********
Mid-State 2-A Conference Finals
BOYS
Walkertown 79, Morehead 68
Walkertown(15-9)/Morehead(17-6)
Northwest Piedmont 1-A Conference Finals
BOYS
Winston-Salem Prep 66, Bishop McGuinness 63
WS Prep(21-2)/Bishop McGuinness(19-8)
GIRLS
Bishop McGuinness 70, NC Leadership Academy 18
Bishop(20-6)/NCLA(10-12)
More on the way….
You give me Jazzy/Little Harris, Christina Delisa, Jadyn Newsome, Zlotkowski, Lizzy Gram, and some of those other Nighthawks, plus Jordan Wall, Jayden Watlington, Tyler Albright(the Grimsley starting seniors) and Jah Saigo from Ragsdale, and I think we could follow suit and do what the old evangelist used to tell us back in the day…With a crew like this, we could be ready to charge Hell with a “water pistol/squirt gun”…..
First let me say I love the hard work you do to cover sports in the area. But I gotta say I’m still waiting on an article on what might be the biggest turn around of the year. Smith high school girls basketball team has been beyond outstanding. Consider this was a program for the past 2-3 years whose won maybe 2 games and was losing games by an avg of 50-60pts. Now this year Coach Bolton and his coaching staff have a 25-2 record 17-0 in the conference and won the regular season and conference tournament. Oh yeah, they only have one senior. Keep an eye on what’s going on on Holden Rd is all I’m saying. You will thank me later.
I completely agree with Fan of Greensboro Sports. It seems to always be about certain teams. What about Smith girls, Ragsdale boys who were Co Champs, Ragsdale girls who went from the bottom of the conference to third place, and other teams in the area that are doing well. They talked about Page and Southwest girls a little, but the hype is always about these other teams and some of who were not even good this year. The hype was over Dudley girls last year because they had Frazier and Monroe, but they fizzled out this year and Smith girls have been dominating. Where is the story on them?? Also, there have been plenty of girls that have scored more than 20 points in a game, some in more than one (players from Page, Ragsdale, Southeast, etc.) and now one player from Northern has had a career game and they should be player of the conference and you write this long article on them??? Look at stats and don’t base things off of one great game. Look at consistency as well as other things. These teams are great but don’t discount the other things that are going on around the area. I don’t know but it seems like there is some favoritism going on……
We broadcast 3 of the 4 Smith-Dudley boys games this year…The Smith girls beating opposing teams like a drum can be hard to draw up interest for…A Smith-Dudley girls game this year was a mismatch…But we have been working on bringing in some info on the Smith girls, so let’s hope we can pull that off…
We just covered the Ragsdale boys last night, and we had the Ragsdale girls in the HAECO and vs. NWG in the regular season….
We have hit the varsity games on Tuesdays and Fridays all season long, and have been at the Middle Schools on Monday and Thursday…Most weeks recently, we have been at games six days a week….Seeing around 12 games a week…
Plenty to cover, and we are right now sitting around the computer, waiting on the NCHSAA basketball seedings and pairings…
You try and find the big games to cover and we have had some good luck going that route this season…The boys games seem to have been closer this season, and the girls games have brought about many a runaway…
Respect to Smith girls and boys amazing job by both. Yet sadly both still underrated teams. Continue to ball out and good things will come their way.
That northern girls team is off the chain too though.
Saigo watlington always been big time ballers. Aau backcourt teammates for years. Very nice hard working young men.
Interview with Smith girls coach Michael Bolton available now here at GreensboroSports.com…
Amen brother Andy. You are right on the money brother.
Yeah but not a big fan of the question about kids transferring. Like how he answered it though. Then let’s go ask that same question to a lot of other coaches out here in this area.
Would love to hear coaches brown and Davis answer that same question Andy.
Let call them ask them???
Coaches of successful programs do not have to recruit high school student athletes…Parents will move and also they will send their children to academies and special academic programs to get their children to schools where they will be seen playing sports in highly successful winning programs….The days of everyone sticking around the old neighborhood to play for the local school are long gone…Parents want their kids in programs that are winning, again so that their kids can be seen by college recruiters…The high school coaches don’t have to recruit….If they are winning and are getting plenty of pub, the kids will come to them….
Andy I have no issue with that since it is the reality. Parent should be able to send their kid anywhere imo. Assuming a lot of folks were asking which is why u asked. Why does the Smith coach get that thrown at him and nobody else?? Just curious is all.
This has been one of the key issues/questions surrounding the Smith girls basketball program this season, and since we had a series of questions, and we were talking one-on-one with Coach Bolton, I felt like it was a good time to clear the air….I did not press him into a corner with the question, I gave him a chance to give me his answer, and he did….He did a good job answering the question, probably because I did not push him into a corner with it, and let him know it was a very big question, even before I asked it…
As far as asking the same question of other coaches, they are not part of the Smith issue, it is a separate situation altogether, and it(the Smith situation) has just come about this season….The other situations are old news, and they have been ruffled around now for a few years….I explained the other situations earlier, where the coaches do not have to recruit players from outside their program….The players want to move into their district and play for these coaches and their programs…..Players will enter academies and special academic programs to get to play at these schools…
I knew nothing concrete about the Smith girls situation until I talked to the coach on Saturday, and it was good to get his side/explanation of what is going with his program….
I thought the questions were fair, and from what I have been hearing off and on, all season long, these are many of the questions that people were/are wondering about….
Hey, if some of the college and pro coaches answered questions as good as I do here in these forums, they might have their own sports web blogs/websites….But, I have to be reminded, who is making the millions, and yes it is those pro and college coaches, that are very vague and do not take time to talk and help the people like we do here….