Area sports briefs: Fields leads Wolfpack
Published 12:00 am Monday, February 2, 2009
From staff reports
Shayla Fields scored 15 of her 19 points in the second half as N.C. State’s women’s basketball team beat Virginia Tech 57-46 on Sunday for its first ACC win of the season.
– College baseball
Freshman Alex Britt (Salisbury) started on the mound Sunday for Mars Hill in a 4-3 win against Belmont Abbey.
Britt earned the victory in his college debut, throwing 52/3 innings and limiting the Crusaders to four hits and two runs. Britt struck out five.
Patrick Atwell (South Rowan) was 2-for-5 for Belmont Abbey, which was swept by the Lions.
* Pfeiffer opened the season with a doubleheader split with Lenoir-Rhyne on Sunday, losing 11-6 before winning the nightcap 9-6.
Pfeiffer’s John McDaniel (Davie) took the loss in the opener. He struck out seven, walked none and allowed four runs in 61/3 innings.
Lenoir-Rhyne’s Zach Glass (Salisbury) was 2-for-7 and scored three runs.
* Freshman Matt Ingold (South) doubled in his first college at-bat for UNC Pembroke on Sunday.
* Carson-Newman swept Augusta State Sunday, while No. 22 Tusculum dropped a pair to Barton.
– Prep hoops
Salisbury’s boys extended their winning streak to 19 games last week and won a big one with Providence Grove that put them in control of the CCC race.
Jason Causby’s team also got help from Lexington, which beat Providence Grove at home Friday to give the Hornets a two-game cushion.
Salisbury is hot, but it still owns only the fifth-longest winning streak recorded at a school that has produced numerous great runs.
The 1991-92 squad coached by Sam Gealy and featuring Bobby Jackson and the school’s all-time scoring leader Bobby Phillips, lost its first and last games and won 26 straight in between. That’s the fourth-longest streak.
The third-longest streak was a 35-game, two-season run that goes back to coach Bob Pharr’s days.
Pharr’s 1970-71 team won its last 20 and beat a Crest team led by David Thompson for the WNCHSAA crown. Then his 1971-72 club opened with 15 straight wins.Gealy enjoyed a 37-game streak in the late 1980s. His 1987-88 squad won its last nine on the road to a state title. Then his 1988-89 team began the season 28-0.
The king of streaks on Lincolnton Road remains the 38 straight victories Pharr coached in a run that spanned three seasons. His 1968-69 club took its last seven; his 1969-70 rolled to 26 straight wins; and his 1970-71 team was 5-0 when North Rowan finally ended the streak.
In a four-season span from 1968-69 to 1971-72, Pharr’s teams won 100 of 105 games.
Had Pharr’s team won that contest with North on Dec. 22, 1970 ó coach Walt Baker’s Cavaliers prevailed 47-45 ó his clubs would have won 74 in a row.
Instead, the grandpa of boys hoops streaks in the county is the 61 straight wins coach Mike Gurley and West Rowan compiled while rolling to state titles in 2002 and 2003.
* With 1,384 points, West’s K.J. Sherrill is now the No. 4 scorer in school history. He passed Joel Fleming’s total last week.
* South Rowan’s Hunter Morrison is the No. 7 scorer in school history with 744 points. Morrison surpassed Jay Bradshaw and the father-son duo of Tony and Mike Propst last week. Morrison needs 36 points to pass South coach John Davis for fifth.
* A.L. Brown’s boys basketball team didn’t get to play a rescheduled SPC game at Anson Saturday because of a mixup in booking officials.
Brown’s Jacques Deese, who is averaging 11.1 points a game, is out indefinitely with a wrist injury.
* West sophomore Ayana Avery already has 723 career points and ranks 20th in school history.
* With 911 points, senior Taylor May ranks eighth in South girls history.
* Ashley Collins (1,083) is the No. 5 scorer in East history, while teammate Katelynne Poole (972) is ninth.
Catawba opens against Barton Wednesday.