Corndogs to cross country
Marty Stanley, the athletics director at Glenn, has shaved a lot of pounds. Don’t know what kind of diet he is on, but I am willing to wager that corndogs aren’t a part of it.
Is that a good way to start the Journal’s first blog dedicated to high school sports?
Sometimes when I meet people and they find out what I do, they ask me how many football games I will see on a Friday night.
The answer is always ONE. I cover one game a night from start to finish, keep a full play-by-play and game stats. It’s the only way to get full coverage of a game, but it also makes for some tough decisions. Lots of games to choose from.
Nobody has ever asked me if I have a blog. If it ever happens, I suppose the answer will be yes as of this posting.
The first tough decision of the season came last week for me. Should I go to Carver and watch what I knew would be an entertaining game against Greensboro Dudley? I decided against it — my reasoning is that Carver might have the best team in Forsyth County this season, and I know I am going to see more of it.
Instead, I decided to make the trip to Kernersville and watch North Davidson play at Glenn. I wanted to see if Glenn was going to put last season behind it and I believe it has. As high school season-openers go, this game was squeaky clean. A combined eight penalties between the teams and only two turnovers — one of which came in the waning minutes when QB Brennen Dodd of North was trying to make a last-gasp play on fourth down and was intercepted.
Glenn won 19-14, and the player that made that sealing interception, junior Josh Hawkins, is probably going to see his name in the newspaper quite a bit over the next two seasons. Hawkins, a safety, also scored all three of Glenn’s touchdowns while coming in at running back. He is listed at 6-0, 160 pounds, but he keeps his pads low and appears to run much heavier than that.
Glenn finished 4-7 in 2008, the only losing season in Coach Dickie Cline’s 30-plus seasons as a head coach. Having talked to Cline several times since the end of last season, and judging by the look on his face after the game, I bet that’s the best he has felt in a year. Back in the I-Formation on offense, Glenn looks like an offensive-line driven team, the way Cline likes it. That line was impressive, too.
One more thing about the Glenn-North Davidson game. With 3:10 left, an official noticed a flash of lightning in the distance — and it was way, way, way in the distance. So the game was suspended for 30 minutes. The threat seemed so miniscule that most of the North Davidson fans remained seated on the aluminum bleachers on the visitor’s side.
The resulting delay left me about 20 minutes to write my game story for our first edition paper. But it was hard to complain. There’s no sense in fooling around with lightning, no matter how far away it is. The officials made the right call.
As for Carver, the Yellowjackets lost 28-20 to Dudley. That tells me that Carver’s first season as a Class 2-A team will be one that lasts for quite a while. Maybe even into December.
I would like to say that I will see most teams in our coverage area play over the course of the season, but it’s simply not possible. For the first four or five weeks of the season, I try to see as many Forsyth County teams as possible. Beyond that, I stick to the better teams and better rivalry games once conference play starts.
This Friday, the game many fans wanted to see last season will take place. But it will be a year too late. The game is Mount Airy at Thomasville.
Mount Airy might never field a team like the 2008 version which went 16-0 and won the Class 1-A state championship. That team was so fast and so well-schooled that the question was raised on Internet message boards and beyond — could the Bears have played with Thomasville?
The answer will never be known. Rest assured Mount Airy is going to have a strong team this season, but as good as last year? Highly, highly doubtful. Too many key parts are gone.
On the other hand, Thomasville, which went 16-0 and won the Class 1-AA state title in 2008, tends to play like that every year. The Bulldogs have moved up to Class 2-A, where more domination is expected. If there is one small-school program in the state that can compete with the big boys year in and year out, its Thomasville hands down.
No matter the result, two of the classiest programs around will be at Cushwa Stadium for this game. Hopefully it will be a good one.
I haven’t decided which game to cover this Friday. Based on last week’s scores, I would say one game that leaps to the forefront is West Forsyth at Glenn. West Forsyth won at Asheville Reynolds last Friday, and that always means something. Have a feeling this will be a good one, but I won’t be making a trip to Glenn two weeks in a row in August. Need to see different teams.
ALSO
Had a lot of fun last week talking with two really good kids, Blair Jeralds, a super soccer player from West Forsyth, and big Terrence “J.T.” Surratt of Parkland, a defensive end who has committed to South Carolina. Pretty sure J.T. is the only football player in Forsyth County with a Division I commitment at this point, and he not only played the part when I saw him in action last season, but he also looks the part.
Found the news curious that less than a month after the NCHSAA announced the cross country championships would be leaving Tanglewood Park for Cary, that XC is coming back to Tanglewood on Nov. 7 because of a scheduling conflict.
Amazing that the NCHSAA has to deal with these setbacks, but it appears the folks in Raleigh that won the four-year bid for cross-country didn’t check the WakeMed Park schedule very closely. One would think the ACC Women’s Soccer Championships (Nov. 5, 7 and 9) would be hard to miss, and parking for that event will wipe out a portion of the park’s cross country course.
And thus, my first-ever blog post comes to a close. I will have more later in the week.
Please feel free to comment, make suggestions, or ask questions. I will try to check daily.