Here’s a breakdown of each girls first-round games on Tuesday.

(8) Heritage at (1) Millbrook, 5:30 p.m.

This game shouldn’t be a problem for the Wildcats, who are attempting to go undefeated in the conference regular season and win the conference tournament. Forward Briana Day should have an advantage in the paint with her size and ability to rebound the ball well. Millbrook can also rely on guards Katelyn Mitchell and Alex Tomlinson. Heritage’s only win this season came in one of the eight forfeited games by Enloe

(5) Broughton at (4) Wake Forest-Rolesville, 7 p.m.

This game should be a competitive one that comes down to the fourth quarter. Wake Forest-Rolesville won both games, but Broughton has been improving ever since its team began to get healthy in early February. Guard Justice Byrd is the Caps most versatile player while the Cougars are led by Taylor Walker.

(6) Enloe at (3) Wakefield, 5:30 p.m.

This is by far the most intriguing game of the first round as Enloe needs to win the tournament to make the playoffs. The Eagles have the weapons to do with guards Dana Brown and Mykia Jones. The game is also interesting because the Wolverines were the first team to face the Eagles after they had to forfeit the eight victories. Wakefield beat Enloe in that meeting, and used good defense that led to easy offense.

Garner boys and Green Hope girls are ranked No. 2 in their 4-A polls. The Princeton boys fall from No. 1 to No. 3 in 1-A boys.

Undefeated Garner continues to rule the News & Observer high school boys basketball rankings. There are no new teams, but there are some adjustments throughout the top dozen teams.

Is it time to fill all of Wake County's magnet seats by random lottery?

That's the position articulated at last week's school board meeting by Jennifer Mansfield, a longtime critic of the magnet selection process and a leader of the Wake Schools Community Alliance. She urged the board to eliminate the guidelines which give priority to applicants from crowded schools.

Mansfield argued that the crowding component should be removed to give applicants an equal shot of getting accepted. Currently, only 10 percent of seats are randomly filled but even that comes with some strings that I'll get into later in the post.

Athlete, School, Sports, College

Juston Burris, Broughton; Football; N.C. State
6-1, 185

Shrine Bowl; NCPreps.com all-state as a safety. A big-play man for Broughton on offense as a wide receiver and defense. Had two interceptions against Jack Britt.

Brandon Pittman, Leesville Road; Football; N.C. State

6-3, 212

A Mobile, hard hitter linebacker who helped Leesville Road to a 9-3 record.

Niklas Sade, Wakefield; Football; N.C. State

6-3, 190

Played in U.S. Army All-America Game; made 83 of 85 point-after attempts and 13 of 17 field-goal attempts in career as a kicker for the Wolverines.

Dylan Intemann, Wake Forest-Rolesville; Football; Wake Forest
6-5, 300

Helped Wake Forest-Rolesville reach state 4-AA title game, a Shrine Bowl pick and AP all-state.

*Marcus Jones, Wake Forest-Rolesville, Football; Minnesota

5-8, 170

Was the most versatile player on team that went to 4-AA state title game, all-star running back and defensive back, rushed for 797 yards on just 98 carries last season.

Blake McCauley, St. David’s, Men’s soccer, VMI

5-10,

A winner of three state titles; was a two-time NCISAA first team All-State. This year he was voted the EPIC Co-Conference Player of the Year. Blake was awarded the Team Most Valuable Player.

Princeton leads the 1-A boys state basketball poll while the Garner boys and the Green Hope girls are second in their 4-A polls. The Middle Creek boys and Wakefield boys also are ranked in the 4-A top 10. Millbrook, Durham Riverside and Southeast Raleigh are among top 10 4-A girls.

RALEIGH The Millbrook gymnastics team, led by its all-around champion Hannah Sobhan, snapped a five-year reign of Lee County by winning the state gymnastics title on Saturday in the large-team division.

"We knew it was going to be really close with [Lee County]," Millbrook coach Tim Baker said. "We've gone undefeated the whole season, won the conference and won the state, so we're happy."

RALEIGH – Here’s our rapid reaction after Wakefield defeated Broughton 72-60 Thursday night in a Cap Eight 4-A conference game:

HOW THE GAME WAS WON

Wakefield was able to stay calm and collected in the final four minutes, which is something Broughton wasn’t able to do. The Wolverines stayed within their offense and was able to get to the free throw line by driving to the basket. The Wolverines also made their free throws while the Caps settled for quick shots that led to easy transition points for Wakefield. Guard Xavier Saddler-Mee (pictured right) had 22 points and forward Jason Lee had 16 that all came in the second half.

TURNING POINT

Lee was a big factor in Wakefield’s 12-0 run late in the fourth quarter. Lee scored eight points during the stretch when Broughton went to a full-court press to induce turnovers. Lee didn’t play well in the first half, but he really made his presence felt by grabbing rebounds and scoring over smaller defenders.

STAT OF THE GAME

In a short time this year Broughton as become a team that relies too much on the three-point shot. That was their biggest downfall against Wakefield. Although Broughton had a lead early in the first quarter, they Caps shot just 1-for-14 from behind the arc in the second half.

RALEIGH – Here’s our rapid reaction after Wakefield defeated Millbrook 60-57 in overtime Tuesday night in a Cap Eight 4-A conference game:

HOW THE GAME WAS WON

This game came down to two plays from Jake Lenox, who was able to score a basket late to give the Wolverines the lead before making his only steal of the game that secured the victory. Millbrook did everything in its ability to push this game to overtime, a sign the Wildcats are still improving with each game.

TURNING POINT

Lenox’s steal gave the Wolverines the possession with the lead, which allowed them to take more time off the clock. The steal was the play of the game because Lexon had no business guarding Millbrook’s Marcus Johnson, yet he stole the ball from the much quicker player.

STATS OF THE GAME

I said it this past Friday, but the key stat with any Millbrook game is turnovers. The Wildcats play a full-court press and the Wolverines didn’t break under the pressure. The Wolverines only turned the ball over 12 times, which is a great number compared to the 20-30 turnovers some teams have against Millbrook. The fewer turnovers allowed Wakefield to have just enough possessions to win the game.

By a 5-4 vote, the Wake County school board rejected an effort today to drop consideration of 20 moves in the 2011-12 student reassignment plan.

After reviewing the first 48 of the 68 items on the plan, board member Kevin Hill called for stopping work there with the exception of also looking at the Carpenter Village moves. He said they had already covered all the things relating to the three-year plan and dealing with crowding that were recommended by staff.

But other board members objected, saying they had gotten comment on items 49 through 68 on the plan. These items are supposed to be things that were brought up last year.

The swing vote was vice chairwoman Debra Goldman, who said they had to consider the last 20 items because they had taken public comment on them. She joined the other Republicans with chairman Ron Margiotta breaking the tie.

UPDATE

The Republicans cited how the parents want to return to Wakefield while the Democrats pointed to crowding concerns if they return.

Here's the summary of today's changes.

The board now plans to meet from noon to 1:30 p.m. instead of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursday to resume work on the reassignment plan. School board chairman Ron Margiotta says he'll bring up converting Highcroft Drive Elementary, Salem Elementary and Salem Middle back to a traditional calendar.

I'm likely not going to be adding new blog posts for the rest of the week while I focus on a project.  I'm going to try tonight to finish adding more details to today's blog posts.