Cary coach Ben Kolstad suspended a number of starters before last week's 34-5 loss to Middle Creek. One of them was his most highly-touted player, offensive/defensive lineman Fre'Shad Hunter.

However, Hunter will not be returning to the team. While other starters were suspended for missing practice, Hunter broke an undisclosed team rule.

Hunter’s mother and Kolstad met, and decided it would be best for Fre’Shad to sit out the rest of the year.

“What happened is, there were some team rules broken, and it kind of became a mutual decision between me and his mom that he was going to focus on academics and nothing else,” Kolstad said.

The senior ranks among the best players in the state and recently committed to N.C. State. He projects as a defensive lineman at the next level, and is ranked by major recruiting databases Scout.com and Rivals.com as a four-star player.

“It’s probably not easy for him, but he’s doing fine,” Kolstad said. “This is something that we’ve been talking about for awhile anyway. It’s not that sudden of a thing for him. He’s handled it well I think.”

The Imps are 4-4 (2-3) heading into this Friday's game at home against Lee County. Hunter, meanwhile, will spend his time readying himself for college.

“He’s just preparing for next year,” Kolstad said. “And this gives him a chance to work on his academics and get himself prepared physically and mentally for next year.” 

No. 1 Apex vs Northern Durham (6 p.m.)

No. 2 Green Hope vs Purnell Swett (1 p.m.)

No. 3 Panther Creek vs Broughton (6 p.m.)

No. 4 Cary at Enloe (6 p.m.)

No. 5 Middle Creek at Wakefield (1 p.m.) 

Cary coach Ben Kolstad suspended a number of starters before last week's 34-5 loss to Middle Creek.

One of them was his most highly-touted player, offensive/defensive lineman Fre'Shad Hunter.

However, Hunter will not be returning to the team. The senior ranks among the best players in the state and recently committed to N.C. State.

It's not known why Hunter was kicked off the team. The Imps are 4-4 (2-3) heading into this Friday's game at home against Lee County.

In a rare cross-town, private school vs public school match-up on Wednesday, the Cary Academy volleyball team remained undefeated. The Lady Chargers won the "Battle of Cary" in four games, keeping their undefeated season alive.

The match, held at Cary Academy, was the first-ever meeting between the two programs.

Cary Academy (27-0) won the first game 25-17. The Lady Imps came back and took the second game 25-22.

The Lady Chargers won a tiebreaker game 29-27 in the third, and closed out the match with a 25-19 win.

Cary High (11-7, 10-5) has just one game left in the regular season with Panther Creek on Tuesday. The winner of that game will claim third place in the Tri-Nine Conference. 

The Lady Chargers have two more games left before the TISAC tournament begins on Friday, Oct. 23.

Two of our area's schools, Apex and Cary High, will have live play-by-play webcasts available for online streaming during their respective football games tonight.

At Cary, Sports Information Director David Maney II will be voicing play-by-play of tonight's Fuquay-Varina at Cary football game at caryhighimps.ihigh.com. The site, which is maintained and updated by Maney, is the third-most visited team page on the ihigh network.

Online streaming will also be available for Apex High as they travel to Lee County, thanks to the upstart North Carolina Sports Network. The for-profit online service is headed by Apex's own Jacques Gilbert and Wake County native Ben McKeown.

The broadcast of Apex's games will be available at NCSportsLive.com and 933MVP.com. The NCSN will also be producing a weekly talk show, The 60 Minute Timeout, which will also be devoted to discussing local high school sports.

In addition to live coverage, the broadcasts for both Cary and Apex will be archived and accessible in streaming format after the conclusion of the games on their respective sites.

Both sites plan on covering the remainder of football season in addition to this year's basketball and baseball seasons. The NCSN will be doing the same for Apex High, as well as Wakefield High and Cary Academy, while Cary's ihigh already plans on doing the same webcasts for volleyball games next week and showing video of those matches on tape delay.

In a recent article by Sports Illustrated, the Cary High Imps were dubbed the No. 4 most unique high school nickname.

The Imps fell behind only the Lakeland (Fla.) Dreadnaughts, the Glenville (Oh.) Tarblooders and the Cairo (Ga.) Syrupmakers.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

"4. Cary Imps, Cary, N.C.

The name is awesome, but the logo is even better. Imagine if the Great Gazoo fromThe Flintstones had turned demonic and started a steroid/imp growth hormone regimen that even Bill Romanowski would have considered excessive. You would let this imp call you a dumb-dumb."

Cary Imps

Last year: 4-8 (4-3 lost to Southeast Raleigh 34-14 in the first round of the 4-A playoffs)

All-Conference players graduated: OL/DL Eloheim Palma, DB/RB/KR/SPEC Bryan Wilson

All-Conference players returning: P/K William Gilfillan (Tri-Eight Specialist of the Year), DE Fre'Shad Hunter, (honorable mention) DT Phillip Ochieng, (honorable mention) RB/LB Ralph Chapman

------------------------------------