From staff reports
Salisbury’s Ibn Ali is the CCC Male Athlete of the Year for the 2008-09 school year, and Salisbury’s Susie Wear is the CCC Female Athlete of the Year. Ali starred for the Hornets in football, basketball and track, while Wear was a standout in tennis, swimming and soccer.
Salisbury also earned the Charles England Excellence in Athletics Award presented for overall athletic showing by the Lexington Rotary Club.
The Hornets accumulated 151 points based on the conference standings in every sport. Ledford (144.5), Central Davidson (139.5), West Davidson (133.5), East Davidson (118), North Rowan (95.5) and Lexington (92) followed.
Central Davidson won the CCC Sportsmanship Award for the third year in a row.
– Prep baseball
Ledford battered Starmount for nine runs in the fourth and rolled 11-0 in a five-inning 2A state playoff game Tuesday.
The Panthers (24-6) excelled behind junior pitcher Justin Livengood, who allowed two hits while striking out seven.
Ricky Vaughn and Patrick Koontz hit back-to-back homers in the big fourth inning. Koontz had three RBIs. Vaughn, Cory Alcon and Travis Vogler knocked in two runs apiece.
Ledford is at home Thursday against East Rutherford in the best-of-three 2A West championship series.
– Prep tennis
Hickory’s boys tennis team defeated Lake Norman 5-3 in a five-hour, rain-plagued match in the 3A playoffs on Tuesday.
Lexington won 5-1 against Ledford in a 2A matchup of CCC squads. The Yellow Jackets will face Newton-Conover in the state semifinals.n Minor leagues
Spencer Steedley (East Rowan) picked up his third save of the season in Beloit’s 6-5 Midwest League victory against Clinton on Monday.
Steedley entered the game in the ninth and allowed singles to the first two hitters he faced. After a sacrifice bunt and an intentional walk filled the bases, he got out of the jam with a strikeout and a lineout to shortstop.
* New Britain’s Zach Ward (A.L. Brown) pitched two scoreless innings in a 5-1 victory against Harrisburg on Monday. He struck out two, allowed one hit and lowered his ERA to 0.32.
Eastern League hitters are batting .178 against Ward, who has fanned 24 while allowing one earned run in 28 innings.
* Lancaster placed pitcher Jaymie Russ (NW Cabarrus) on the California League’s disabled list on May 13.
– Intimidators win
Newcomer Gregory Infante made threw four shutout innings in his first appearance for the Kannapolis Intimidators in a 3-1 victory over Delmarva on Tuesday.
Henry Mabee earned his 10th save by retiring the last six Delmarva hitters.
Danny Jordan, Lyndon Estill and Christian Marrero knocked in runs for the Intimidators.
The teams play a doubleheader today at Delmarva. First pitch is at 5:05 p.m.
Kannapolis returns home on Saturday.
– College baseball
South Carolina outfielder Whit Merrifield (Davie) was named to the SEC all-freshman team. He is batting .319 with 24 multi-hit games and 54 runs scored.
* The Southern Conference tournament began on Thursday, with Wofford beating The Citadel 8-4 and Western Carolina winning against Davidson 11-10 in 12 innings.
Brett Shore (South Rowan) scored twice for the Wildcats.
* In the first round of the ACC tournament today in Jacksonville, Fla., N.C. State takes on Georgia Tech, Miami faces Clemson, Florida State meets Wake Forest and North Carolina plays Virginia.
– Phillips joins ACC
Former Salisbury Post sportswriter and editor Steve Phillips has been hired as the ACC’s assistant director of media relations.
He spent 15 years with the Post, including two as sports editor before working for the High Point Enterprise for 11 years.He begins his new duties June 4.
His responsibilities will be promotion and publicity of baseball, women’s soccer, men’s and women’s swimming and diving and men’s and women’s tennis.
– South football camp
The South Rowan coaching staff is inviting children from kindergarten through fifth grade to its third annual Raider Football Camp. The camp will be held at Donnell Stadium on June 14 from 9 a.m. until noon. Note a date change from the earlier release.
Lunch will be provided.
The cost is $20 and includes a South Rowan T-shirt, lunch and your picture on the southrowanfootball.com Web site.
Pick up info at the main office at South or contact head coach Jason Rollins at 704-762-0268.