“The Last Ride”

Friday night was the “The Last Ride” for the 2023-2024 high school basketball season…

Have gone to Boiling Springs, Hickory, Jamestown, Summerfield, High Point, Forest Oaks, many other places, and then back to Hickory again for “The Last Ride” last night…

A couple of those stops were in football season, but when ‘The Ride’ starts, you never know where it might end….

All of our teams lost last night, and therefore we were on our Last Ride of the season….

Made a load of basketball game stops this season, but last night’s “Last Ride” was not the way you want to go out……

Have been to Hickory several times before and experienced much success, on Friday night that was not to be the case….Southern Guilford fell by 27 points to the Hickory Red Tornadoes, but for the sake of being on a positive, as “The Last Ride” comes to a close, Southern Guilford was right there with Hickory for most of that game…I mean SG down by two points at the end of the first quarter, and still down by just two points at halftime, and only down by seven points as the third period came to a end…

But in the end, Southern Guilford lost by 27 points, as the Hickory Red Tornadoes out-scored Southern 31-11 in that fateful final quarter of the ballgame, with Hickory taking the contest by a final score of, 82-55…John Holbrook, that big post player for Hickory, with zero points at halftime, but then then the big man goes off for 21 points in the second stanza/half of the game…

So SG finishes the season on a down note, but how do you get it back up on High School High Note???

You remember the season as a whole, the sum of its parts…And the parts were darn good parts…Jamias Ferere, Jucarie Love, Jy Dawkins, for the J3 SG…Dawkins due back for the next two seasons, but for Ferere and Love, you have to love them as they are leaving out…Those kids could score in bunches…And the dunks, boy those dunks were the rim-rattler types, and they filled the air and the team, and the fans with ENERGY…Josiah Hill could get hot in a hurry, while Franklin Brown would give up his body on defense, and he got a big-time busted lip/mouth vs. Crest, and certified the Franklin Brown mettle…Dawkins a gracious young man, Ferere a young man who had to make a decision prior to the season, that would change his life forever…Give up football for basketball and that is what he did, and it help lead to a (29-2) season for the Southern Guilford Storm…All great Storm kids and Zy McGee at point, was also a kid that could carry the load/team in a leadership role…Got to Love, as you lose them…

These SG kids sort of almost came out of nowhere, as they were hidden down the southern part of Guilford County, in the Sumner Community…But we know them now, and we just hope Coach Wil Perry can take this season, and what the Storm has done, and carry it on over to the next seasons….Once you get the mansion on a thousand hills started, you want to keep on adding on rooms…And Southern Guilford athletic director Jeff Carter has been right there with this group, and Jeff became a bonafide Storm Chaser and close follower, as he was with his team every step of the way….

Great season for Southern Guilford and you can not sum up the Southern season, by just looking back at the last game, that came on the night of “The Last Ride”…So many great memories and these moments from 2023-2024 will last FOREVER….For all that we can tell, this was the winningest and most productive boys basketball team in the history of Southern Guilford High School…

And we lost the Smith Golden Eagles boys and girls teams last night too…I made that trek to Hickory, and although last night was not the successful road trip we went looking for, as I was traveling up Highway 40 West, I couldn’t help but think back to the Hickory trips of 1996, as I was following the Dudley Panthers on their way to the NCHSAA 4-A State Championship…

It was the NCHSAA Regionals in Hickory, at Lenoir-Rhyne College back in ’96, and Dudley did not disappoint…In the West Regional Semifinal game on Thursday night, Dave Odom, Jerry Wainwright, Ricky Stokes and the entire Wake Forest University coaching staff were there in Hickory to see the Dudley Panthers battle Gastonia Hunter Huss, for the right to play in the Regional Final…Odom, the head coach at Wake, and his assistants were there to see Brendan Haywood from Dudley, and Kris Lang from Huss…Dudley topped Huss, and both Haywood and Lang ended up playing college basketball at North Carolina…..

After taking down Huss, Dudley stopped the West Forsyth Titans cold on a hot Saturday afternoon there at the Lenoir-Rhyne College gym…It was so hot they had to open up the back doors at the gym, to get some air into the place…No air conditioning in the gym, back in those days…Well, Dudley disposed of West Forsyth on that Saturday, and the Panthers had Haywood in the post, and plenty of talent surrounding him…Players like Vincent Whitt, Braxton Williams, Darien Price, and Derek Partee made out the Dudley lineup…

Whitt and Williams both ended up at Clemson, with Whitt for basketball and Williams for football, and Derek Partee has become one of the top high school boys basketball coaches in North Carolina, as he currently is in charge of his charges, at Ben L. Smith High School…West Forsyth’s top player from that game back in 1996, Titcus Pettigrew ended up playing college basketball at Penn State…

So I saw success at Hickory with the Dudley Panthers in the past, and was also able to call the Southeast Guilford girls basketball NCHSAA 3-A West Regional Title game back in 2020, as they shut down Morganton Freedom, there at that same Shuford Gym, on the Lenoir-Rhyne campus…Falcons girls won it, Dudley boys won it, but the Dudley boys football team came up empty back in December, while our local Southern Guilford Storm, fell short last night…But for “The Last Ride”, we also need to thank Coach David Craft, the Hickory HS athletic director for the hospitality last night, as he got us set up to do our broadcast there inside the David Craft Gym, named for his father, a legendary coach from the Hickory Red Tornadoes of the past…Not too bad, to be working at a school, where the gymnasium is named for your father….

So saying all of that to get back to this, and got Derrick Partee in the above parts about the Dudley Panthers days in high school basketball, as part of the hosting and toasting at Hickory, and back in the older days at LR…

Got to give it up to the Smith boys and girls for the great seasons that they just completed…Got to be one of the top Basketball Programs in the state when you look at the boys and girls hoops numbers, at Ben L. Smith High School…Back in another era, the used to say the L. in Ben L. Smith stood for losing, but this day and time, when you bring up Ben L. Smith High School basketball, and as the L. gets addressed, the L. in Ben L. Smith, now stands for LOOKOUT….Lookout for the Golden Eagles….This season the Smith boys and girls finished up with combined record of (52-9)…..That speaks volumes for what is going on with high school hoops, over at Ben L. Smith HS….

Boys coach Derrick Partee, girls coach Mike Bolton, and Smith athletic director Chris Lassiter have this basketball program reaching for the utmost heights…The Smith Golden Eagles are soaring under the leadership of Partee, Bolton, and Lassiter…

Smith boys will lose Gage Lattimore, Jaylon Bumpass, Myke Hunter, and Jamil Jeter off of this years squad, but a large flock of Eagles are due to return to The Nest for next year’s campaign….With some of the talent Smith has coming back, and with the new faces coming on board, this team is going to be way above board for many seasons to come…..

The Smith girls will see Morgan Smith, Azahreya Drayton-Gill, Shamara Rogers, Arianna Morales, Justice Ezekiel, Aloni Rutledge, and Tatiayna Coles all moving on, but like the Smith boys, the Smith girls have built a very solid foundation under the guidance of their leader and coach Mike Bolton….

Last night was “The Last Ride” of the season, and we have broadcast games, and written about games at a higher level than ever before here at this site….Good Night, Good Day, and Goodbye to all, as we move on to our next season, and may the success of 2023-2024 follow you down the Highway of Faith, Hope, and LOVE for the sport of basketball, and especially basketball, on the high school level, and closing, we say THANKS to all of those along the way, that made our stay so SWEEEEEEET this past season….

If we were doing it in a Ring/Squared Circle, this is how we would be doing it, on “The Last Ride”…We would do it, like The Undertaker did it…OH YEAH!!!!!