1Carteret: Students. Sports. Success.

The Story: Lady Cougars

Anybody who has watched this group of girls come along knows they have a special chemistry. With Coach Yount at the helm, the Lady Cougar hoop stars have come out of the gate 13-0. This Friday, they travel to South Lenoir for a clash of titans.

Here’s a News-Times snippet on their early success—

CLINTON — The Croatan girls basketball team continued its domination on the hardwood Friday night with another impressive victory. The lady Cougars crushed the lady Dark Horses 73-57 to remain undefeated on the season.

Croatan is now 13-0 overall, 5-0 in East Central play with nine more regular season games to go.

Clinton attempted to force Croatan to turn the ball over against a full-court press, but the lady Cougars easily defeated the pressure, scoring numerous easy baskets as a result and took a 40-25 lead into the half.

Four Croatan players managed to score in double figures during the contest. Ar’neka Montford led the way with a game-high 23 points, four rebounds and five steals. Megan Bridges added 15, while Chelsea McGowen had 11 and had five rebounds. Molly Lewis rounded out the quad of double-digit scoring players with 10 points, six rebounds and four blocked shots.

Postscript:  The Cougar Matmen are off to a 18-1 stellar start.   Combined, the Lady Cougars and Cougar Matmen are posting a chest-thumpin’ 31-1 record.

Middle School Hoops

The season is up and running for seventh and eighth graders.  On the boys’ side, Pamlico and Morehead Middle have jumped out to perfect starts.  On the girls’ side, Broad Creek remains undefeated.  Both Pamlico and Arapahoe are right there, though.

We are early in the season and anything can happen.  Keep an eye on the season schedules and standings.

Braggin’ Rights Settled for Guys

The holiday tournament sealed the deal for West Carteret to claim annual bragging rights for local basketball dominance. Over the first part of the hoops season, though, many of the inter-county games were nail-biters settled by just a few points and/or in overtime.

• WCHS beat CHS three times by a total of 10 points, 1 W in OT. WCHS went 2-1 against ECHS, with 1 W in double-OT.
• ECHS went 1-2 against WCHS and 2-1 against CHS for a .500 county mark.
• CHS finished 1-5 in a lot of close battles. They capped the inter-county season by nipping ECHS 56-55 in the consolation of the Holiday Classic.

Hats off to Coach McClanahan (WCHS), Coach Anderson (ECHS), and Coach Dillard (CHS) for bringing the intense competition to the hardwoods this year. These are three very strong and animated basketball coaches with a lot of coaching experience.

This should translate into some entertaining and competitive local hoops action over the next few years. Good luck to all three HS teams as they pursue their conference schedules.

Braggin’ Rights Settled for Girls

The girls high school basketball competition for local bragging rights is settled.

• Croatan Cougars have jumped out to a 10-0 start, beating East twice and West thrice. They own the bragging rights this year and are setting themselves up to be a very interesting sports story. Stay tuned.
• The young West Carteret Patriots went 2-1 against East and 0-3 against Croatan for a combined record of 2-4.
• The rebuilding East Carteret Mariners went 0-2 against Croatan and 1-2 against West for a 1-4 record.  East grabbed some value points, however, by winning the Holiday Classic.  They took out West in the first round and avenged an earlier loss to Grammercy in the championship game.

Grammercy, the new kid in town, is certainly one to watch.  Grammercy, with a pool of only about 40 high school girls from which to select a team, beat East and West during regular season play.

Hat’s off to all the girls playing high school hoops in Carteret County, their coaches, and their fans/supporters.  Now it is on to conference play!

Broad Creek Wins Soccer Title

Couple an awesome display of firepower with an unyielding defense. Add seasoned soccer coaches and a culture of soccer excellence. What do you get?

Broad Creek Middle School turned in another undefeated 9-0 soccer season to retain the Crystal Coast Athletic Conference middle school soccer championship.

The Bulldogs outscored their opponents 86-1.

The eight 8th grade Bulldog soccer players, several of whom play at the elite classic level in club soccer, exit their two-year middle school soccer career with a perfect 18-0 record.

And knowing Coach Holland and the Broad Creek soccer tradition, the pipeline of talent remains loaded.

There is no denying that our middle schools are the feeder systems to our high school athletic programs. This perfect two-year run by Broad Creek is a harbinger of continued soccer success at Croatan for several years to come.

Congrats, Bulldogs. The Creek continues to rise in this year’s middle school athletics.

Football Champs: Pamlico
Girls Soccer Champs: Morehead Middle
Volleyball Champs: Broad Creek
Boys Soccer Champs: Broad Creek

Up next—basketball and wrestling!

Not Necessarily a School Sports Story

This is a U-14 Classic club soccer team. The girls attend Broad Creek Middle, Morehead Middle, and Tucker Creek Middle (Havelock). As their record indicates, they have a tradition of winning. But they are not a super-star, win at all costs team. The coaches develop all players as responsible and caring young citizens first, quality athletes second. The winning has been a by-product.

WCHS Avenges Loss to East

The local high school basketball season is made up of three mini-seasons. First is the settlement of local bragging rights for the year. Second is the regular conference play. Third, to the qualifiers, is the post-season journey.

In the battle for local bragging rights, WCHS Patriots shook off their demons and returned to winning form with an 81-65 domination of the ECHS Mariners on Tuesday night in the Mariner Dome.

With only one day of practice since the Friday night victory by East, WCHS Coach Craig McClanahan tinkered with the lineup. West went small and fast, went deep into the bench early, and benefited from resurgent interior prowess.

The formula proved correct as West evened the series at 1-1. This sets up some intrigue for the Holiday Classic Tournament to be held at the WCHS gym on December 26 and 27—where West, East, Croatan and Havelock will shoot it out for final say on the local bragging rights.

Here’s a highlight reel—

West Girls Sweep East in Regular Season

ECHS Wins One for the Ages

The East Carteret / West Carteret sports rivalry pre-dates Gordy Patrick. And Friday night’s East-West B-Ball shootout ranks among the classic contests in this rivalry tradition. In a double-OT battle of attrition, the fleet feet and steely nerves of East proved to be the difference over the inside height of West.

New ECHS b-ball coach Billy Anderson has his team executing the fundamentals, and that kind of discipline can win the close ones. Down the stretch, the Mariners exhibited patience on offense, scrappiness on D, and near perfection on the foul stripe.

East Carteret took all of the joyous moments from that point on as the Mariners opened the overtime period taking the lead and never gave it up. West tied the game at 56 with 1:15 to go, but turnovers, fouls and missed shots doomed the Patriots as East eked out a 59-56 win, hitting three free throws in the final 30 seconds to seal the victory.

Conversely, the Patriots—in their third OT contest of this young season— struggled at the line and inside the paint. Three Patriot starters fouled out.

“Our kids played hard,” said Patriot coach Craig McClanahan. “But like I told our kids in the locker room, you have got to knock down free throws, you have to make layups and execute on the offensive ends. You have to be able to handle pressure, and we did not do as good of a job as East Carteret did.”

True to form, the gym was packed with fans from both sides of the bridge. And, as in any storied rivalry, the fanbase wasted little time in getting into the action. In an ironic 1Carteret twist, harmony existed between the fans during the 3.5 minute halftime dance performance by the WCHS Dream Team.

Outside of that, it was classic Friday night cross-county rivalry to the nth degree on the floor and in the stands. Advantage ECHS.

“I think that when you have 30 turnovers and give up 19 offensive rebounds, you are going to lose. We lost,” McClanahan said.

Fortunately for West, the Patriots do not have to wait long to try and get their revenge. The two teams will renew the series Tuesday night at East Carteret.

“We are all going to go home and get a lot of rest and a lot of water,” said Anderson. “It is going to be another dogfight Tuesday. I am new to the area, but I know rivalries, and this is a good one.”

Prep Sports Eject More Players

From the N&O:

CHAPEL HILL – Ejections for bad behavior in high school sports have more than doubled so far this year statewide, thanks to stricter enforcement of sportsmanship rules.

Unsportsmanlike conduct — which can include fighting, on-field celebrations, diving into the end zone and taunting opponents — has become a greater concern in North Carolina partly because of increased emphasis on improving athletes’ behavior by the National Federation of High School Athletic Associations, which sets the rules that the state association must play by.

Mark Dreibelbis, the association’s head of officials, cited “the brazenness of our young people” during winter board meetings Tuesday. “We don’t want to take spontaneous celebration out of the game,” he said. “But we have to make our students accountable.”

Mark Dreibelbis is scheduled to come to Carteret County on February 18 to do the first 3.5 hours of the National Federation of High School Athletics Associations “Fundamentals of Coaching” workshop.

We need at least 20 coaches for the workshop to make.  We can take no more than 40.  If you are interested, send me an e-mail at jpoletti@co.carteret.k12.nc.us