The Super Bowl, traveling to South Carolina and back, and the common cold delayed the TCN/SWW boys' basketball rankings for a day — but I wouldn't let these things keep them down for long.
One playoff team finds itself slipping in the polls this week after three straight disheartening losses...
We're a day late and possibly a dollar short, but here are this week's TCN/SWW rankings for our area's girls' basketball teams. There are just two weeks left in the regular season counting this week's action.
Both the Cary and Green Hope wrestling teams will wrestle at Chapel Hill on Tuesday night as part of the first and second round of the 4-A Dual Team Championships.
The Imps will take on Chapel Hill first, with the winner facing the winner of East Wake-Green Hope. Green Hope made the tournament as a wild-card team. The top two teams in each conference get automatic bids to the tournament.
It is not known where Panther Creek will be going to wrestle as of this time. The Catamounts are in the same pod as Fayetteville Seventy-First, Raleigh Sanderson and New Bern, and will face Seventy-First in the opening round.
Holly Springs, which finished second in Greater Neuse Conference, will go to Durham to face Riverside High in the opening round.
Tri-Eight wrestling standings
Cary 7-0
Panther Creek 6-1
Green Hope 5-2
Athens Drive 4-3
Fuquay-Varina 3-4
Apex 2-5
Middle Creek 1-6
Lee County 0-7
--One interesting thing about these standings is there were absolutely no upsets. Everyone simply lost to the team(s) above them in the standings while Cary lost to nobody. The conference championship is being held today at Cary High.
It can't be overstated what an impact the late N.C. State coach Kay Yow had on our area, basketball in general and just average people like you and me.
On the day of her funeral in Cary's Colonial Baptist Church, several high schools honored Yow in whatever way they could. If there are more that I'm unaware of (I can only be at one game at a time) just post it in the comments section below.
I think it's great that our local high school players and coaches want to do something for her, and those that I've witnessed or heard about deserve mentioning.
Multiple Milestones
How unreal was it that you have not one, not two, but three landmark milestones reached in the same wrestling match?
Coach Jerry Winterton entered the day with 597 wins. He picked up No. 600 against Chapel Hill in the day's third match. Eloheim Palma, now ranked as the No. 1 heavyweight in the nation, entered the day with 197 wins, which allowed him to reach his landmark win against Chapel Hill as well. Gabe Brotzman, the No. 1 wrestler in the state at 152 pounds, entered the day with 198, but lost in the day's second match, so he too reached No. 200 against Chapel Hill.
Needless to say, it was a special day in the storied history of Cary wrestling.
Getting ahead of one's self
Weirdly enough, the PA announcer at the event got some bad info and prematurely announced Palma's 200th win after a pin in :27 against J.H. Rose. Although he got a nice ovation, Palma actually got No. 200 in an anti-climatic forfeit against Chapel Hill.
N.C. history made
Never before in North Carolina wrestling history had two three-time state champions faced off against each other, and it's easy to understand why. A) it has to be two guys in different classifications, B) it's awfully hard to win three straight years C) it requires two guys who have won state championships in their freshman years, and D) a combination of all of the above doesn't happen often, period.
But at the Bob Mauldin Classic at East Wake High School, the day's first match pitted three-time 4-A champion at 135 Corey Mock of Chapel Hill and three-time 3-A champ Jacob Creed of Jamestown Ragsdale.
According to some in the crowd, the two have had a rivalry over the years with Mock having the upper hand, and this was the first time they had faced each other this season.
The rest of the teams looked on at the only match as Mock defeated Creed 9-5. Creed was obviously frustrated with having lost to Mock again and jilted Mock's attempt to embrace after the match — not a smart or classy move when literally everybody is watching you.
After the match, all other teams began their duals matches.
Not much changed this week in the TCN/SWW boys' basketball rankings. But this week could loom large for those still trying to move up in the standings as we expand to 10 teams with Fuquay-Varina entering this week. To see where the Bengals entered, click the blue "Read More" button below.
This week, we're the TCN/SWW rankings instead of just the TCN rankings. This of course, is because we're The Cary News to the towns of Morrisville and Cary, but the Southwest Wake News (I leave out News and abbreviate it SWW for Southwest Wake) to Apex, Holly Springs and Fuquay-Varina.
Speaking of Fuquay-Varina, we welcome that school to our weekly rankings of the area's girls and boys basketball teams.
In this week's TCN/SWW girls' rankings, Green Hope reached their highest ranking of the year.
Boys' Scores
Athens Drive 62, Apex 58 (story coming later)
Cary Academy 45, Durham Academy 37
Lee County 79, Cary 71
Cary Christian 66, Halifax Academy 34
Middle Creek 78, Green Hope 55
Panther Creek 89, Fuquay-Varina 45
Girls' Scores
Cary Academy 49, Durham 37
Green Hope 59, Middle Creek 48 (story coming later)
Cary Christian 75, Halifax 39
Fuquay-Varina 46, Panther Creek 36 (story coming later)
Cary 64, Lee County 61
Apex 68, Athens Drive 63 (story coming later)
Sports Editor J. Mike Blake looks at the girls' and boys' basketball standings in the Tri-Eight and gives his commentary on this Friday's games.
