Parity
went out the door this week as we finally got some match-ups that
helped break last week's five-way tie for first place. Apex downed
Holly Springs and Panther Creek edged Middle Creek to give us some
semblance of what a ranking system should look like. We won't update
these rankings until all teams are done playing winter break
tournaments.

BOYS BASKETBALL RANKINGS:

We've
had our share of surprises here in the first semester of the basketball
season. For one, nobody expected Green Hope to be THIS good. Or the
Tri-Nine for that matter. The conference's top four teams have five
combined losses, all but one coming to one of the other top four. Cary
Christian's slew of injuries has been as sad to watch as Cary Academy's
hot streak under first-year coach Danielle Harber has been fun to
watch. So here are this week's SWakeSports girls basketball rankings.
We'll take a few next week off to let teams finish out all their
holiday tournaments before ranking again.

Things are getting crazy in the Tri-Nine. Apex, Middle Creek, Cary,
Panther Creek and Holly Springs all have one conference loss apiece,
making this week's rankings next to impossible to sort through. Panther
Creek beat Apex, which beat Holly Springs, which beat Panther Creek.

Nobody has a long enough resume' to justify staying put in their spot
for too long, so I'm a big fan of moving teams up and down multiple
spots in the early season. But it's hard to move anybody when the
surrounding teams all have wins and losses in the past week.

So let me introduce to you the first five-way tie for first the SWakeSports blog has ever seen, and hopefully will ever have.

BOYS BASKETBALL RANKINGS:

This week's rankings are made easy by Green Hope's continued dominance.
They've won their first nine games of the year, and sophomore Kristen
Gaffney has four consecutive triple-doubles. And what's strange is you
hardly notice she's taken over the game. She's everywhere, forcing
steals, converting layups and crashing the boards, but she's got so
much help even as an observer, you don't focus in on her much more than
anybody else.

With most teams already a fourth of the way through conference play, it's time to release our first edition of the SWakeSports blog Basketball rankings. These weekly rankings, which we also did last year, include the eight local Tri-Nine teams, Cary Academy and Cary Christian.

Anything could happen in boys basketball this year. No one team has been truly dominant, but Panther Creek deserves the top spot as the Catamounts are the only Tri-Nine team without a conference loss. Want parity? The top and bottom teams played this past week -- and the game was decided by a mere four points.

 BOYS BASKETBALL RANKINGS:

1. Panther Creek (3-1, 2-0) defeated Fuquay-Varina 44-40, def. Apex 65-64

•  The Catamounts lost nine players to graduation, three to Division I, and their coach. And yet, they've won three straight and are the only team unbeaten in Tri-Nine play. Give credit to new coach Travis Chapman and the newcomers.

2.  Middle Creek (3-1, 2-1) def. Green Hope 59-35, def. Athens Drive 64-53

•  Their only loss was to Holly Springs by four -- which is also about how many players the Mustangs were without thanks to the excessively long and overlapping football season.

3. Apex (3-2, 2-1) def. Cary 66-37, def. Leesville Road 69-45, lost to Panther Creek 65-64

•  All the pieces are there, but it just hasn't come together yet. It's surprising since this team won the UNC-W team camp, but there's plenty of games left.

4. Cary (2-2, 2-1) lost to Apex 66-37, def. Holly Springs 69-65

•  The Imps are averaging 67 points in two home wins and 35.5 points in two road losses -- in which they lost by at least 29 points. Personally, I'd petition to wear home whites all year long.

5. Holly Springs (3-2, 2-1) def. Lee County 56-42, lost to Cary 69-65 

•  The Golden Hawks have looked pretty good this year -- just not good enough to leapfrog Cary after Friday's loss.

6. Cary Christian (3-4) def. Carolina Friends 43-40, def. Cary Academy 75-65

•  The Knights got a big boost of confidence this past week, winning twice including the program's first-ever win over Cary Academy.

7. Green Hope (2-4, 1-2) lost to Middle Creek 59-35, lost to Wakefield 70-36, def. Lee County 49-39 

•  Scoring is the problem right now as the Falcons have scored 10 or fewer points in 13 of their 24 quarters played.

8. Cary Academy (2-3) lost to Fayetteville Christian 74-41, lost to Cary Christian 75-65, lost to Greensboro Day 78-34 

•  A 2-0 start was followed up with a 0-for-3 week with all three losses coming by double digits. The young team must grow up quickly.

9. Athens Drive (1-3, 0-1) lost to Sanderson 47-58, def. Broughton 68-62, lost to Middle Creek 64-53

•  It's hard to gauge the Jags right now as they've played more CAP-7 games than Tri-Nine ones. Playing nonconference games first? Imagine that.

10. Fuquay-Varina (1-5, 0-2) lost to Panther Creek 44-40, lost to Clayton 54-50  

•  A pair of four-point losses and two other single-digit losses has Fuquay at the bottom of the list.

First of all, I apologize that the TCN/SWW softball rankings are out a few days later than they should be this week. Last week did a lot to let us know where the teams stood as we enter the final weeks of the season. I was on hand to witness a fantastic game between Apex and Fuquay-Varina, and it's sad that one team had to lose that one. But the Cougars' loss is the Bengals' gain, and Fuquay gets the No. 1 spot this week.

1. Green Hope (14-2, 6-0 Tri-Eight). Last week; def. Apex 4-1, Athens Drive 2-1, Southeast Raleigh 10-0

2. Middle Creek (11-5, 5-1 Tri-Eight). Last week; def. Athens Drive 6-2, def. Holly Springs 10-7, def. Panther Creek 6-1 

3. Holly Springs (11-3, 6-3 Greater Neuse). Last week; def. Garner 8-1, lost to Middle Creek 10-7, def. Wakefield 8-7

4. Fuquay-Varina (7-8, 5-1 Tri-Eight). Last week; def. Cary 9-0, def. Apex 5-0

5. Apex (8-5, 3-3 Tri-Eight). Last week; lost to Green Hope 4-1, lost to Fuquay-Varina 5-0 

6. Athens Drive (8-7, 3-4 Tri-Eight). Last week; lost to Middle Creek 6-2, def. Panther Creek 13-0, lost to Green Hope 2-1

7. Cary (5-8, 1-4 Tri-Eight). Last week; lost to Leesville Road 7-4, def. Panther Creek 5-3, lost to Fuquay-Varina 9-0

8. Cary Academy (6-3, 1-1 TISAC). Last week; lost to Durham Academy 10-6, lost to Durham Academy 6-5, def. Durham Academy 4-3

9. Panther Creek (1-9, 0-5 Tri-Eight). Last week; lost to Middle Creek 6-1, lost to Cary 5-3

Nothing's really changed since we released our softball round-ups last week in order of ranking. The three teams that did play over Easter break played one game, and six others were idle. This week, Apex-Fuquay is a must-watch on Wednesday.

1. Apex (7-0, 3-0 Tri-Eight). Last week; def. Southeast Raleigh 3-2

2. Fuquay-Varina (6-3, 3-0 Tri-Eight). Last week; idle

3. Holly Springs (4-3, 3-1 Greater Neuse). Last week; lost to Wakefield 4-2

4. Middle Creek (3-3, 1-2 Tri-Eight). Last week; idle

5. Green Hope (6-3, 3-1 Tri-Eight). Last week; idle

6. Athens Drive (4-2, 1-1 Tri-Eight). Last week; idle

7. Cary (2-6, 1-3 Tri-Eight). Last week; idle

8. Panther Creek (3-4, 0-4 Tri-Eight). Last week; idle

9. Cary Academy (3-4 0-2 TISAC). Last week; def. Franklin Academy 18-0

Took me long enough, I know, but here is your first look at this year's TCN/SWW (that's The Cary News/Southwest Wake for you noobies) baseball rankings. We'll release these each and every monday, right here on the SWakeSports Blog. 

Before we get to the rankings themselves, let's recap what happened over the spring break tournaments (Bobby Murray and Four Oaks Bank Challenge).

• Green Hope proved they deserve our top spot. Holly Springs also proved themselves more than worthy of second.
• Middle Creek suffered a loss to Western Harnett that dropped them behind Apex (which defeated Western) despite the similar records between the two rivals.
• Talk about an off year for Fuquay. The Bengals dropped to three games under .500 and are in 5th in our rankings. 
• Talk about a bad weekend for Athens. After entering the Bobby Murray Tournament a 7-2, the Jags were beaten three times in as many days! The 0-3 showing prevented them from leapfrogging Fuquay in this week's rankings (Fuquay won the only meeting between the two).
• Cary, on the other hand, helped themselves out a lot by a 3rd place finish in the Bobby Murray. I still couldn't put them ahead of Athens however, as the Jags won the first meeting 5-1.
• Cary Academy shellacked Franklin Academy 11-1 last week. 
• Cary Christian was idle (...we think. Is there somebody that can start e-mailing me their scores? Surely they have more than three games). 

1. Green Hope (11-2, 4-0 Tri-Eight). Last week; def. East Chapel Hill 6-0, lost to Glenn 9-5, def. Oxford Webb 3-2

2. Holly Springs (9-3, 4-3 Greater Neuse). Last week; def Apex 7-5, def. Lee County 7-6

3. Apex (8-3, 3-1 Tri-Eight). Last week; lost to Holly Springs 7-5, def. Garner 5-2, def. Western Harnett 7-3  

4. Middle Creek (8-5, 3-1 Tri-Eight). Last week; lost to Western Harnett 5-2, def. Southern Lee

5. Fuquay-Varina (5-8, 3-1 Tri-Eight). Last week; lost to Southern Lee 4-1, def. Western Harnett 7-5, lost to Garner 4-2

6. Athens Drive (7-5, 2-2 Tri-Eight). Last week; lost to Millbrook 12-2, lost to Broughton 8-4, lost to Wakefield 9-7

7. Cary (4-7, 1-3 Tri-Eight). Last week; def. Wake Forest-Rolesville 7-3, lost to East Wake 3-0, def. Broughton 4-3 

8. Cary Academy (5-2, 0-0 TISAC). Last week; def. Franklin Academy 11-1

9. Panther Creek (1-7, 0-3 Tri-Eight). Last week; def. Sanderson 9-3

10. Cary Christian (1-2, 0-1 EPIC). Last week; idle