Rocky Mount High School | Archive | November, 2018

Call it first varsity-game jitters, testing the law of averages, or plain old bad shot selection — Nash Central coach Renny Taylor’s personal theory — but the Bulldogs boys’ basketball team, at home in their season opener on Tuesday night, couldn’t get much to fall.

They scrapped their way through a tough first half, trailing by only five against Rocky Mount High (1-0) entering the third quarter, but hit just one 3-pointer all night and 13 field goals in all en route to a 58-38 loss for the Bulldogs (0-1).

“We kept shooting, we kept shooting, but we couldn’t make anything,” Taylor said. “I guess the players were looking at it as the law of averages, that something might fall. It just never did. There are shots you take, that don’t go in, that are good shots. But we had guys who were 0-for-6, 0-for-7 from the 3-point line, still shooting 3s. They need to figure out — on this given night, I’m not hitting. I need to do something else.”

The good news? It was only the first contest in a long season, the team’s second in 2-A, in which new faces different from last year’s are dotting the bench.

“Well, you don’t want to lose every game to begin with, for sure,” Taylor said. “But you do know there’s a learning curve to it. We had guys out there today that had never played basketball. It showed. What we have to do, as coaches, is make sure they know what they’re supposed to do, what their responsibilities are. They’re doing that in practice, but crowd, lights, new team, that’s when it gets too fast for some of them.”

For the Bulldogs, Chris High led with seven points.

The challenge for the Gryphons, who used a 23-point third quarter to extend its halftime lead from five to 23 entering the fourth, was getting the newcomers from the football team up to speed. RMHS’s football season ended on Friday. Many of the players on Tuesday had only one practice to transition into basketball season.

“Those guys are just coming off the football field. They’ve got to get some reps. One day of practice, then coming to try and learn the system, it’s kind of tough,” coach Michael Gainey said. “Once we get them in shape, make them understand we’ve got to utilize our size, we’ll be OK.”

Among the gridiron-to-hardwood players was 6-foot-5 sophomore Keeshawn Silver, someone who Gainey gave playing time to last year as a freshman, consistently imploring him to use his height. Tuesday was no different, and Silver took advantage, finishing with two dunks, three blocks and and 13 points, including seven in that important third quarter.

“He’s a football guy. He had some football camps, that’s where he was during the summer,” Gainey said. “So I’ve got to get what I can out of him while he’s here and while we play.”

Two freshmen were on the opening night roster for the Gryphons — Jahsun Ward and Isaiah Miller. Both played and scored, including the final two buckets of the game for Ward.

The Gryphons have eight seniors on the roster in all this season, including Deonte Gray, the fearless 5-foot-5 point guard who led the offense while scoring six points and dishing out three assists on Tuesday night.

“That’s my boy,” Gainey said. “He’s the coach on the floor. He can take the criticism and he can get on me when I deserve it.”

Girls

Rocky Mount High 47, Nash Central 29

Two-and-a-half games into her team’s season, coach Pam Gainey finally saw in her Gryphons a little bit of what she had been preaching over the last month.

Tied at 21 entering the third quarter on Tuesday night at Nash Central, the Rocky Mount High girls’ team put together its best quarter of the season, flowing on offense while allowing no Bulldog field goals on defense to win the quarter, 22-1, outscoring their own first half total in eight minutes.

The Gryphons (1-2) eventually won their non-conference matchup against host Nash Central (0-1), 47-29 — their first win in three tries, while a young Bulldogs team dropped its first game of the season.

“I’m trying to emphasize that they need to play more together,” Gainey said. “Earlier in the season we seemed to be just watching. Everybody wasn’t sure of what they were doing. That’s a mindset that’s got to change. They’ve got to study, know what they’re doing, then have confidence in doing it.”

The leading scorer for Rocky Mount High was Mya Pittman with 16, a varsity player since freshman year who Gainey said will have to play a big role in any success this year.

“This is her senior year — she has played significantly since she was a ninth grader,” Gainey said. “So it’s time, it’s time. She’s got to do a bit more focusing on what we’re doing.”

For the Bulldogs, who scored 13 points in the first quarter but only 16 the rest of the way, Ashanti Anstead led with seven points.

BAILEY — Rocky Mount High football coach Jason Battle was upbeat as he walked off the Southern Nash football field on Thursday following his team’s 35-21 loss to the Firebirds with a rare smirk.

The Gryphons (7-1, 3-1) mounted an effort that forced the Firebirds to grind out possessions, a rare feat as Southern Nash has won every game this season by at least 21 points until Thursday.

In fact, the last time Southern Nash won a regular season game by fewer than 14 points was back in 2016 in a 10-point win over Nash Central on Nov. 4 of that year.

“Our kids performed tonight,” Battle said. “We knew how good they were, and I think we challenged them tonight. It was a great high school football game.”

The hype that filled Twitter timelines and school hallways throughout the week was real as the game lived up to its billing. Firebirds running back and N.C. State recruit Zonovan Knight broke the school’s career rushing total, and running mate Quinton Cooley rushed for more than 100 yards.

RMH, too, had its own share of big offensive plays, rambling runs and downfield passes. And despite the Firebirds collecting 460 rushing yards, the Gryphons defense made keys plays that shifted the tide of the game.

Southern Nash scored touchdowns on three of its four first-half drives, but found no easy passage in the second half. After RMH cut the deficit to 21-14 with a 57-yard touchdown drive out of the break, the defense showed up.

On back-to-back possessions the Gryphons’ defense forced a pair of fumbles that they turned into seven points. RMH couldn’t make use of the first turnover and punted four plays later, drove 70 yards as Antwain Dunston reeled off a 55-yard gain to set up Tashaun Lawrence’s second touchdown of the game which tied the score at 21-21.

“It felt like the line did a good job and it was a good gap and I hit it with all I got,” Dunston said of his run. “It was a good result.”

Southern Nash (7-0, 3-0) went back to Knight and Cooley who each added a touchdown to put the game out of reach.

Three things

1. Despite Knight rushing for a game-high 284 yards on 24 carries, the future Wolfpack was kept out of the end zone until late in the fourth quarter.

Knight punched in the final score from 7-yards out with 3:26 remaining.

“We had to stay together, and look to the next play and move on,” RMH linebacker Cedric Baker said. “We missed some key assignments, but it was a game where you just have to do your job.”

2. Lawrence, who rushed for 91 yards and a pair of touchdowns for the Gryphons, was the first to find a crack in the Firebirds’ defense. RMH was stymied throughout the first quarter to the tune of 1 rushing yard, before Lawrence added a 34-yard touchdown run in the second frame.

The speedy back proved to be the Gryphons answer to moving the ball.

“You miss him because everybody watches Rodell (Bridges),” Battle said. “But he works hard and he played hard and he carried us for a while.”

3. Running hard is a staple of Dunston’s game. The Gryphons junior even has a nickname to go with his bruising style — Bo. As in Bo Jackson.

Dunston led RMH with 101 yards on the ground and, though he didn’t find the end zone, set up the tying score at 21-21 with a 55-yard punishing run through the heart of the Southern Nash defense.

“That’s my style,” Dunston said of running into contact. “I like the way this game was played.”

Scoring plays

First quarter

SN – Daylon Whitley 5 run (Carlos Garcia kick), 2:05

Second quarter

SN – Daniel Batchelor 9 pass from Matt Foster (Garcia kick), 7:35

RMH – Tashaun Lawrence 34 run (Saylor Newton kick), 3:50

SN – Quinton Cooley 7 run (Garcia kick), 31.9

Third quarter

RMH – Lawrence 8 run (Newton kick), 9:38

RMH – Jaquan Lynch 1 run (Newton kick), 1:35

SN – Cooley 30 run (Garcia kick), 51.5

Fourth quarter

SN – Zonovan Knight 7 run (Garcia kick), 3:26

BAILEY — Way back in August, while doing a question-and-answer with Southern Nash’s Zonovan Knight, Rocky Mount High’s Shyheim Battle made a bold prediction for this upcoming season.

Whose going to win the Big East?

“I’m pretty confident in my team,” Battle said. “Other than us two in the conference though, I don’t think there’s nobody else there.”

The cornerback was speaking of his Rocky Mount High Gryphons and Knight’s Southern Nash Firebirds.

“I’m going to go ahead and agree with that,” Knight said.

Two months later, the belief in their respective teams has proven tenable; neither 3-A program has lost a game.

That will change for one side on Thursday night, when Southern Nash (6-0, 2-0) hosts Rocky Mount High (7-0, 3-0) at 7 p.m. Both bragging rights and an edge toward winning the conference will be on the line.

Of course, this game won’t decide the fate of either team’s 2018 season.

That’s something coach Brian Foster — whose Firebirds beat the Gryphons in the 2016 regular season, but lost to them in the playoffs later that year — was quick to point out on Wednesday, but it does have the look and feel of an important, exciting game.

What they’re saying

Foster, on that win in 2016: “Well, when we beat them two years ago, we were on top of the world. I tried to tell our guys — just because we won a conference championship doesn’t mean anything for the state, and we lost to them in the second round, and that ended up being the truth. We want to win, you know that, but our ultimate goal is to win the state championship and we still ain’t done that.”

Quinton Cooley, Zonovan Knight’s running mate, on Knight, who needs 179 yards to break the school record:“He talks about it all the time. He’s always saying, ‘I need this, I need that to get to the record. I’m close to it, I’m going to beat it.’ He’s very excited about the record.”

Foster, on his most memorable matchup with Rocky Mount: “Probably the one where I fell out. I fell face down first, passed out. I think that was memorable just because Zack (Foster) stayed and played. He didn’t know what was going on.”

Indeed, in a 2014 game that the Firebirds won, Foster passed out on the sideline and spent the night in the hospital.

Brian Batchelor, Southern Nash’s offensive coordinator, on that 2014 game: “The next year Jason (Battle) was joking with us. He said, ‘Look now, Brian fell out and them boys got motivated.’ I had already told (Brian) Foster, ‘If things get tight tomorrow, you might need to take a dive.’”

Jason Battle, Rocky Mount High coach, on the matchup — “We’re well aware of the situation and the implications that it has for the rest of our season, the thing we’re trying to do is just be normal. There’s been times before where in these situations you get so uptight that you don’t play, so it’s really trying to be as normal as we can.”

Battle, on Knight — “He’s a different kind of running back, you don’t see those kids all the time with the speed and elusiveness that he has, and he runs with power, too. He a long, lanky kid, man, you don’t want to see but one of them a year.”

Carrington Garrett, Rocky Mount High offensive lineman, on playing in a big game — “We’re trying to treat it like any game. You got to approach it as a regular game, stay on your everyday thing. You don’t automatically treat it like a big game, but at the same time you know what the stakes are but you can’t inflate it in your head.”

After spending last season chasing the football on defense, Rodell Bridges is now the one being chased.

And he couldn’t be more happy.

The Rocky Mount High senior is the focal point of the Gryphons’ offense, just one season after playing a full varsity schedule and recording 32 rushing yards on eight carries. He was much more effective on defense, leading the Gryphons’ with 93 tackles.

Despite the talent Bridges brought to the defense, coach Jason Battle figured Bridges would be more effective as an offensive player. Turns out, Battle was right. Through seven games this season Bridges has been the top receiving target in the passing game for quarterback Jaquan Lynch, as well as the Gryphons’ go-to answer in the running game by leading the team in both categories.

“He’s happy. People have a tendency where things work out better when people enjoy what they’re doing,” Battle said. “He’s been a better practice player and a better kid all around after moving him to the other side of the ball. He seems very appreciative, comes out and practices hard every day and plays well on Fridays.”

The Gryphons (7-0, 3-0 Big East Conference) will likely require every bit of production from Bridges when they travel to Bailey on Thursday for a game against Southern Nash (6-0, 2-0) in a matchup that features two of the remaining 10 undefeated teams in Class 3-A.

The Firebirds feature one of the most dynamic backfields around led by Quinton Cooley and N.C. State recruit Zonovan Knight. The duo has combined for 31 rushing touchdowns and 1,845 rushing yards. Cooley, meanwhile, has another 93 receiving yards and two scores.

“You gotta be able to wrap him up, either one, actually, because both of their backs are very dangerous, extremely dangerous,” Battle said. “In order to contain them it’s going to take 11 people. It’s not a defensive line game, it’s not a linebacker game, it’s 11 people doing their job.”

Gryphons junior Tashaun Lawrence isn’t taking anything for granted. Lawrence is a talented runner and pass-catcher, just behind Bridges in both statistical categories. He has played a large role in making the RMH offense go, but also remembers a time when that wasn’t the case.

Last season, nothing seemed to work the Gryphons, who didn’t have that reliable rushing game to go with first-year starting quarterback Jaquan Lynch’s passing game. When the Gryphons hosted Southern Nash this same week a year ago, the Firebirds had no problem earning a 35-7 win.

That’s why the attention to detail this week was so important, both in film sessions and in practice.

“Everybody knows it’s going to be a huge game and everybody knows to be ready,” Lawrence said. “But at the same time you don’t want to get too high. We are both undefeated but we have to go in like the underdog because they beat us pretty bad last year and I took that pretty deep.

But everybody’s coming together now. Last year some things weren’t right, but we’re doing pretty well lately. That’s how I feel. Tomorrow’s game will probably be a shootout game because they can score and we can score too. But if we get some stops we’ll be all right.”

RMH hasn’t allowed more than 21 points in any game this season, and will face a Firebirds team that hasn’t scored fewer than 49 points in any game. This Gryphons defense is talented and big up front, and hasn’t lost a step despite losing Bridges to the offensive side of the ball.

The Gryphons haven’t missed the former tackle leader on defense as much as one would expect as players like Daquon Horne, Cedrick Baker and Alandis Trevathan have stepped up.

On paper this game looks to be interesting from a number of angles.

But as the saying goes, that’s why they play the games.

“We just just have to execute a lot and we’ll be all right,” Lawrence said.