Holly Springs Golden Hawks

Last year: 2-9 (1-6 Greater Neuse Conference)

All-Conference players graduated: LB Dan Collins (Greater Neuse River Conference Co-Defensive Player of the Year), TE/SS Alex Dolan (honorable mention), QB Mark Collins (honorable mention)

All-Conference players returning: RB J.J. Graves, LB/WR Xavier Bailey

Carlos Rodon, junior, Holly Springs baseball 

Carlos Rodon, a 6-foot-2, 192-pound junior baseball pitcher/first baseman at Holly Springs High, committed to N.C. State this week.

Last spring as a sophomore, Rodon hit .330 with four home runs and 30 RBI. Rodon was one of six sophomore starters for the three-year-old program that went 19-6 this year.

As a pitcher, he was 2-1 during his sophomore season and posted 67 strikeouts in 40 innings as a freshman.

In a one-week span this year against Fuquay-Varina and Panther Creek, Rodon had two homers with 11 RBI. 

Carlos Rodon, a 6-foot-2, 192-pound junior baseball pitcher and first baseman at Holly Springs, committed to N.C. State this week.

Last spring as a sophomore, Rodon hit .330 with four home runs and 30 RBI.

As a pitcher, he was 2-1 as a sophomore. He posted 67 strikeouts and 40 innings as a freshman.

We gave you the breakdown for the northern half of the conference on Thursday, so now it's time to look along Highway 55 and farther south for the rest of the Tri-9 football teams and their schedules for the upcoming year.

Graduated Holly Springs football player Dan Collins was named to the North Carolina East-West All-Star game, making him the first player in school history to receive such an honor. Collins plans on walking-on to East Carolina's football team next year.

I've got some sad news to pass along.

Luther Johnson, most recently the former principal of Holly Springs High School, died Friday after a long illness. He was 39.

Johnson was also a past principal of Leesville Road Middle School and an assistant principal at Wakefield High School.

We've got new principals tonight at Holly Springs High, Davis Drive Elementary and Wildwood Forest Elementary and an interim leader at Carver Elementary.

Timothy Lee Locklair will become principal of Holly Springs High, replacing Luther Johnson, who left due to health issues. Locklair has been the principal of Apex Middle since 2004 and previously was a high school teacher and assistant principal in Moore County.

Locklair will receive a salary of $95,902.

Six area teams set out on Tuesday night as part of the first round of the NCHSAA 4-A softball playoffs, but only two teams will still be playing later this week in the second round.

Fuquay-Varina, which won the Tri-Eight conference championship, shut out Holly Springs to win by the 1-0 score (our own Fred Dry will have the story on this game between two of our area's teams coming soon).

The Lady Bengals are set to play again later this week, at home, against Leesville Road, while the Golden Hawks end their final season in the Greater Neuse Confernce at 16-5 overall.

Second-seeded Apex won at home by a 2-1 score over Southeast Raleigh, and will now hit the road to play at Wake Forest-Rolesville, which...

...took out Green Hope by the 7-1 score on Tuesday, ending the Falcons' season at 12-9. Also ending their season was...

...Middle Creek. After making it to the "final four" of the softball playoffs last season, there will be no such encore for Heather Robb & co. The Lady Mustangs lost 2-1 at West Johnston on Tuesday.

Also falling in the first round was Athens Drive, which lost to Greater Neuse champ Garner 3-2.

Apex was up 2-1 over Holly Springs after three innings in the NCHSAA playoffs' first round game, when the Cougars got a second wind like they had never felt before this season.

Apex scored eight runs in the fourth inning. For a team known more for its defense and pitching, it comes as little surprise that the Cougars (15-7) scored more runs in that one inning than they had in 18 games this season. As a result, Apex went on to win 12-1 in six innings and it will be Apex and not Holly Springs that moves on to the next round to face PAC-Six champ Riverside (18-3).

The Golden Hawks ended their season 19-6 after finishing second in the Greater Neuse River Conference (Dave Malenick will have the story from this game).

In a much more exciting fashion, another Tri-Eight team upset a GNRC team on the road on Friday.

Fuquay-Varina, the fifth seed coming out of the Tri-Eight, needed extra innings to pull out a 4-3 nail-biter over GNRC champion Smithfield-Selma (15-8) on Friday. The Bengals (12-13) will now play Sanderson (14-10) in the next round of the playoffs. 

The only other Tri-Eight team left is Green Hope (20-5), who will host Broughton in the next round. 

The NCHSAA women's soccer playoffs started on Tuesday, which meant for some teams Tuesday was the end of the line.

That rang true for Athens Drive, which had a date with unbeaten Leesville Road and lost 2-0. The same went for Holly Springs, which lost 1-0 to Fuquay-Varina.

Holly Springs, the Greater Neuse Conference champion, ends their season at 13-5-1.

After today's big 1-0 upset in OT, Fuquay will now move on to face Sanderson (9-7-3) on Saturday.

Yet to play in this year's playoffs are Panther Creek (tomorrow at Clayton, 7 p.m.), Green Hope (tomorrow vs. Southeast Raleigh at 6:30) and Apex (tomorrow vs. Knightdale at 6 p.m.).