To recap, we've got just one week of inter-conference duals meets left in the Tri-Eight. On Jan. 28, Fuquay-Varina will be at Cary, Lee County travels to Apex, Panther Creek goes to Middle Creek and Athens Drive will battle for third place in the conference against Green Hope.

Here are the standings as of now:

Cary remains undefeated in wrestling with win over Panther Creek

Cary 33, Panther Creek 27 

For a match that would determine the regular-season champion in the Tri-Eight conference, Wednesday's Panther Creek versus Cary match sure didn't disappoint.

In what was one of the closest regular-season duals meets in years, the Imps held off the Catamounts 33-27. The win all but wraps up the 27th consecutive regular season conference championship for Cary (21-0, 6-0), which has just one more match remaining against a struggling Fuquay-Varina team.

Panther Creek (23-5, 5-1) had taken a 18-15 lead after Joe Morrison, the eighth wrestler in the 14-man lineup, won by pin over Jacob Brotzman. Cary came back with two minor decisions by Cordale Risk at 135 and Ronnie Winterton at 140.

Winterton's match was huge as it not only put the Imps ahead 21-18 with three matches left, but it came against Alex Branoft, who had beaten him three times in the past. 

Gabe Brotzman and Matthew Colvard stepped up next for Cary, each getting pins to lift Cary to a 33-21 lead. The Imps forfeited the final match. 

285-E. Palma (C) Forfeit 

Athens Drive 65, Middle Creek 10

The Athens Drive wrestling team sent off its four-year wrestlers in style on senior night, with a commanding 65-10 win over Middle Creek.

Eight Jaguar wrestlers scored pins as they routed the Mustangs. Next up for Athens will be Green Hope in two weeks. That match could decide third place in the conference.

Individual Results were:

Shane Goodchild (ADR) won 4-2 over Loflin (MDC)
Ryan Goodchild (ADR) won by fall :34 over Cook (MDC)
Drew Gintig (ADR) lost 15-1 to Loverde (MDC)
Sam Greenstein (ADR) won by fall 1:34 over Haynes (MDC)
Dan Martin (ADR) won by forfeit
Jeff Dion (ADR) won by fall 1:49 over Mattocks (MDC)
Cliff Griffin (ADR) won by fall :56 over Kamorek (MDC)
Kevin Chou (ADR) won by fall 4:49 over Stennet (MDC)
Ashton Rodgers (ADR) won by fall :40 over Hedgepeth (MDC)
Robert Christley (ADR) won by fall 1:06 over Brown (MDC)
Brandon Bellopatrick (ADR) won 7-6 over Wallaus (MDC)
Cyrus Kolar (ADR) won 16-1 TF over Salimor (MDC)
Bryan Houston (ADR) won by fall 4:10 over Gross (MDC)

Dan Alston (ADR) lost by fall 5:42 to Manning (MDC) 

We've got just one change in this week's TCN boys' basketball rankings, and it's in the top third of our rankings.

Panther Creek is No. 1 in the state on the 4-A level.

Athens Drive is No. 5 and Middle Creek is No. 10, which means we're heading for some incredible showdowns this season between those three, but before we can get to the first one of those this Friday, we had games to play tonight.

Could Panther Creek hold on and could undefeated Athens Drive avoid upset before these two titans play each other this Friday?

Here are tonight's scores from around the Tri-Eight conference, and how the standings are holding up.

Panther Creek 52, Apex 43

Earnest Ross stays hot for the Catamounts, leading all scorers with 25 points. Weston Murphy and Connor Belicic each chip in 13 for the losing Cougars, who dropped to 6-7 overall. I think the fact Murphy got double-digits speaks volumes about how good/underrated he is. Panther Creek has made it a recent habit of embarrassing the best player on the opposing team, holding Melvin Tabb to four points and Stan Okoye to six.

Athens Drive 55, Lee County 38

The Jaguars are now 13-0! And they'll host Panther Creek this Friday (better get there early if you want a seat folks!) in what'll be a monumental match-up.  Lee County scored two — that's right — two first-quarter points. Josh Davis (what a player he is), had 29 points for Athens in the big win.

Middle Creek 79, Fuquay-Varina 45

The area's high-watermark has been set for single-game points scored, as Tom Tankelewicz dropped a whopping 37 points on the Bengals Tuesday night. Garrius Adams had 24 himself, and the Mustangs crushed Fuquay from beginning-to-end, leading 57-17 at half. Middle Creek is now 12-2 overall and 4-0 in Tri-Eight play.

Green Hope 69, Cary 65

I've been telling people that neither Green Hope nor Cary are as bad as their records indicate, and I think this game proves my point. Cary had enough to mount a 11-point lead, and Green Hope had enough firepower to overcome it. Shawn Shaffer had 22 for the Falcons in the win, which they desperately needed after starting out 0-4 in conference. 

 Tri-Eight Standings

Athens Drive 4-0 13-0

Panther Creek 4-0 12-1

Middle Creek 4-0 12-2

Apex  1-3 6-7

Fuquay-Varina 1-3 3-10

Cary 1-3 1-12

Lee County 1-4 4-8

Green Hope 1-4 5-10

Keep in mind this Friday Panther Creek (13-1, 4-0) will head to Athens Drive (13-0, 4-0). I'm telling you, get your seat early! Games like this one (No. 1 vs No. 5 in the state) don't happen in this area every year, so you'd better catch the match-up while you still can. Trust me. We'll have more on that game later today.

 Other area boys' scores:

Cary Christian 57, Friendship Christian 46

Cary Academy 60, Wake Christian 51

Holly Springs 71, SE Raleigh 69 

Wachovia Bank, N.A., along with the North Carolina High School Athletic Association, today announced the standings for fall sports in the Wachovia Cup competitions for the 2008-2009 sports season.

It's no mistake that the North Harrison Avenue families are slated to wait until 2010 to be reassigned to Cary High.

In the draft plan, those nodes were slated to be reassigned from Panther Creek High to Athens Drive High in 2009-10. Administrators said they'd recommend moving them to Cary HIgh instead, as urged by the parents, in the revised plan.

But what surprised those nodes when the plan came out last month is that they won't go to Cary High until 2010.

We certainly found out a lot about our area teams as they competed against some top-notch competition at various tournaments.

Winter break is coming to a close for our area schools, so it's time to blow the dust off the ol' TCN rankings and see how each team did over break.

We don't have any games listed for Apex, so we're assuming the undefeated record is still intact. If that's the case, then who said idleness is a bad thing? Cary Christian lost two games at the Johnson-Lambe Tournament by a combined five points, meaning Apex will leapfrog them this week.

Also losing two games over break is Athens Drive, who faced stiff tests from Wake-Forest Rolesville and SE Raleigh.

It wasn't fair to move anybody else up or down, but we should note that Cary Academy is poised to vault up the standings if they can continue their outstanding play. After finally defeating Cary Christian (first time out of three games this year), the Chargers came within seconds of defeating Southern Durham (losing in OT) and easily won a match-up with Fuquay-Varina.