JV Boys 👦 off to a red hot start, leading the Cougars. 13-5!

More to follow !

Why do we care about this game ? Ryan Phillips is an up and coming young Coach and belongs to a fine family 👪 Tree 🌳 of Paul Nester. This is the first time that Ryan Phillips has held the position of Head Coach at the High School level.

  Win or Lose, we are Big Fans of EVERY Coach at the Middle School and High School level.

Halftime score at 3:56 MT time is Patrick County 36, Carroll County 29.

End of 3rd, Cougars 52-44 as the 3rd was a story of two runs 🏃‍♂️. Cavaliers start with 12-2 as Sam made his third and fourth 3-pointers but then the Cougars closed with a 14 – 3 run of its own.

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Game #2 of 7 – Alyssa Ervin and the Furman University Paladins! ESPN +.

Why do we care about this game ? Miss Ervin will always be part of our story and seeing her having fun on the Basketball court again is a blast !

1st Media TO – Furman 7, WCU 3 (4:50)

End of 1st – WCU 10-9

The announcer just called Christy’s Girl 👧 ” Scrappy “

Scrappy has 7 points as we near the half. Halftime score is Paladins 30, Catamounts 19.

Scrappy had her own highlight reel in the 3rd quarter. Moved her point total from 7 to 20 !!! ‘ Dins lead 52-33!!

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Game 3 of 7 that we care about is being played in a Gymnasium where cell phones 📵 go to die. Hailey Cushman and her Cavaliers are 9 – 5 on the season. Tonight they played at Patrick County High School in Stuart. The Cougar Den has minimal to no cellphone coverage so I will be dependent upon hearing from someone later.

Cushman is in year 2 of working with Howard Mayo and Coach does a tremendous job with her troops. This is important because if the Lady Cavaliers are going to regain some of their past glory all roads run through Cushman.

Our Athletic Director, Kevin DeHaven informed us that the Lady Cavaliers won a thrilling 39-35 contest in OT !!!

Head Coach Anthony Barnes and his Cavaliers are hosting Patrick County tonight. The Cavaliers are in the middle of five games in six days…

Patrick County opened with a 10-0 run 🏃‍♂️ so the Cavs have some ground to make up.

My, oh, My ! Down 10-0, the Cavaliers lead 21 -16 after the opening 8:00 !!!

End of 3rd, Cavs lead 53 -45…

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Game #5 of 7 that we care ❤ about is

Our tag line is Everything Duke, UVA and wherever we stay. This explains why we have the level of devotion to ALL Things Carroll County, because for six years now it where we call home.

For the past 3 months, for Medical 🚑 reasons, we have called Southern Utah home. So naturally we support the efforts of both Utah Tech ( St George ) and SUU. Normally we would be watching this one in person but tonight its about a match up here in STG ! #GoT-Birds…Tip was 6:30 Mountain ⛰ Time.

Down 59 – 49 with 11:00 to play ▶️

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Game #6 of 7 tipped at 9pm / 7pm here in St George.

Slight underdogs, the Trailblazers are leading 13 – 5 with 14 minutes to play in the opening half !

Up 17 – 9 at the under 12:00 Media TO!

Under 4:00 – Trailblazers leading the Wolverines, 35 – 21!

Headed to the break, leading 42 – 25!!

Under 16:00 – Trailblazers lead 52-36

The Ladies of these two schools just finished a close one up at UVU. Wolverines win that one with a fourth quarter rally.

Under 12:00 comes at 10:32, 60 – 51 for UT as the Wolverines are showing their claws.

TO – 8:18, UT leads  65-57 but as Lin just noted, they are having to work pretty hard for every basket 🧺 as of late.

Under 4:00 doesn’t take pace until 1:53 remains, the lead is 79 – 70. UVU had cut ✂️ it to six before UT drilled a much needed 3-pointer!

TO at 1:09 – Blazers leading 79 – 73 in a highly entertaining game.

0:34.1 – 79/75 after UT missed the front end twice in a row. Steal and basket 🧺 makes it 79-77.

We missed the front end for a third time but grabbed the board.

0:07.4 – 10th foul committed and FT made !!!!!!!

💅bighter

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Game 7 of 7 involves Howard Mayo and his Varsity Lady 👩 Cavalier team

Big fans of the Legendary Coach and appreciate 🙏 every thing he is trying hard to accomplish with our flagship program.

  I will be at the mercy of whoever wants to help create a story here as the team plays at Patrick County on Senior Night.

Text Message from Mr DeHaven :

Varsity girls up 26-19 with 5:53 left in third quarter.!!!!!

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What happens next ? Anthony Barnes will send me his thoughts about his team and the effort that he received.

I will then write ✍ him a game story because he believes his players work hard and their efforts for him belong in a story. Hence, the reason why we care ❤ about Anthony Barnes….

This is year six for us in Laurel Fork and what we do should not be a surprise to anyone out there. We believe that everyone is equal and we challenge ourselves to uphold that thought process each and every day.

The second story that will get written by me will be about Scrappy ! Why, because it is fun and doesn’t require any thoughts from Coach Pierre Curtis. Side note 📝, I would love to here his thoughts one day.

The Boys Junior Varsity game was much closer than the final score reflected. Keep our Boys heading in the right direction, Mr Phillips !

Time to create a game story for Anthony Barnes !

Carroll County 74, Patrick County 61

Cougars –  16 12 17 16 –  61

Cavaliers – 21 16 16 21 – 74

Carroll County ( 74) – Easter 38, Gravley 16, Reed 12, Reavis 4, Motley 3 Bunn 1.

The Hill – Carroll County spotted visiting 10 points in the first two minutes and 25 seconds, leading Head Coach Anthony Barnes to call an early timeout. Not sure exactly what Barnes suggested to his players but Isaiah Easter and friends caught the Cougars by 16 on the way to a much needed 74-61 Three Rivers District on Thursday night.

Saddled with playing five games in six days as each team is racing against the clock ⏰ to get the regular season completed, the team played without sixth man, Hayden Jackson. Jackson suffered a concussion during the contest on Tuesday versus Radford High.

Colton Gravley and Blake Reed had their former Junior Varsity teammates back as the duo teamed up to score 28 points. Gravley dropped 16 points while playing with the energy of the Tasmanian Devil from start to finish !

Reed ( 12 points ) matched his offensive effort while collecting Blocked 🚫 Shots like gathering Candy on Halloween 🎃.

To say that Isaiah Easter has enjoyed a storybook Senior year would be an understatement. But against the Cougars he showed us he is capable of being a Basketball Star 🌟. Easter scored in double digits in the first and final quarters on his way to a career high 38 points.

In football, its the quarterback to lead the 10 teammates on both sides of the ball to a common goal. His efforts this season at Quarterback led the gridiron 🏈 Cavaliers to a season for the ages. But in basketball, sometimes you have to just tell yourself, ” I’ve Got This ” and if a leader can do this then others will follow.

12 points in the first quarter in the sparked a 21 – 6 run to erase the early deficit. Easter took a pass from Eli Lark after the Junior stole it, scoring just before the buzzer. For good measure, Easter quickly turned around, stole the inbounds pass and scored again.

Lark, along with Landon Kinder and Landon Phillips each played key 🔑 minutes off the bench to fill the void left by the loss of Jackson. Bullpen by committing would be a solid comparison for the gritty effort !

Trace Reavis added four points before fouling out and Will Motley added three points during the fourth quarter push that allowed the Cavaliers to secure its eighth victory of the season.

Kyle Bunn rounded out the scoring column with one point and a multitude of solid defensive minutes.

There will be a small window for the Cavaliers to celebrate as they still have two more games this week and they are against the only two teams that truly bettered them the first time around. Martinsville on Friday night and Floyd County High on Saturday afternoon.

Barnes took the time to share his thoughts on the victory :

” Man slow start against a hard playing Patrick Co ,making no excuses (every team in same boat )but this is tough on the guys this week,even practiced a little harder than usual yesterday before a game because of the only practice this week and the guys responded and needed this win. Totally different team without our 6th Man in Hayden Jackson not giving the boost off the bench due to concussion suffered in a very  physical Radford game, Hayden is tough and hopefully gets better to join us soon.  Again another very physical game that was tightened up and we didn’t help it with our hands on them and contact we were playing with. Finally got things going in transition.  

   Kudos to bench guys in Bunn,Lark ,Phillips and Kinder,  guys stepped up came in done their roll and helped secure at times a  crazy ,wild physical game. Sometimes it’s not pretty, but you  survive and get it done,   but  we will take a W in this tough District anytime.  No rest for us or Coaches,  one of the best 2A schools in state in Martinsville comes too us tomorrow.  On too the next one, Go Cavs !”

Both Elijah Cox and Katie Lam have the upcoming ODAC tournament to look forward to here in the coming weeks.

Alyssa Ervin and Furman University play tomorrow at 6pm / 4pm MT

Have yourself a Blessed Day 🙌

The old Hee Haw song 🎵, ” If it weren’t for Bad Luck, I have to Luck at All ” is a perfect fit for our Golden Bears Baseball 🐻 team today. The season opening tournament down in Tennessee had been moved back three times and when we did finally get to cross the chalk today it was against the #6 team in the Country that already played four times this season.

We certainly took our lumps today but that doesn’t mean that our players mean any less to me then when the day started. We will look to get back up on that horse 🐎 with another doubleheader tomorrow and hope for better results !

Today was a return to action 🎬 for a large number of Cavaliers as four Basketball teams, two Swim 🏊‍♂️ teams and a group of intellectual Kiddos competed for our benefit.

Before I get to the stories that I can now create, I need to say Thank You 🙏 to everyone who was helping me tonight. I am pretty sure that the number of people trying hard to help was outnumbering the folks reading at the time.

Our Athletic Director, Kevin DeHaven supplied updates on the Swim 🏊‍♂️ Regional meet.

Kristy Jones was front and center on the 🧠 Academics meet !

Anthony Barnes has checked in with enough information about the Varsity Boys game that we can create a Gamer.

Bill Gallimore, Rick Nester and Samantha Lark – Smith checked in from The Hill where the Boys 👦 played.

Travis Osborne reached out but that was just to say Happy Anniversary to Lin and I. Yes, I spent five hours of our Anniversary trying hard to track down information about six events so that we can say ” We See You ” to the Athletes and Coaches..

Now come Round 2… how much time gets spent on each story and how best can you get it read ?

Do we just want to read about our success stories or do we care about all of our efforts……. Million Dollar 💵 ???, that one is….

The stories are not going to write themselves so its time to get started.

Welcome 🙏 Back Cavalier Basketball 🏀 🙌 as we play four tonight !!!  Boys on The Hill, Girls in the Land of J.J.

This link will take you to the collection of the Basketball games 🏀 until the others are ready.

If you look closely 👀,  the eyes of Alyssa Ervin yesterday afternoon told a story. The fact that our Sophomore guard was able to give Coach Pierre Curtis 24 minutes of play yesterday, despite not feeling well, goes to mental strength.

In a game full of physical defense on both ends of the floor, the victory went to the Buccaneers after a tie-breaking 3-pointer in the closing seconds.

East Tennessee State University prides itself on playing in your face defense and they rode that to a 7-0 lead with 3:10 remaining in the first quarter. It was at that point that speculation about why Ervin didn’t start the game.

Standing at the free – throw line after being fouled, Ervin looked beyond worn out. But its worth noting that she still made both FT’s.

It was unfortunate that Furman was playing two games against the other top teams inside of 48 hours. Already playing without two key 🔑 players due to injury, having Ervin at less than 100% didn’t help.

Clare Coyle flirted with recording a double double by the halftime break.  Her heroic effort allowed the Paladins to lead 23 – 18 late in the second quarter. ETSU ended the first half in the same manner that they closed out the game, by beating the buzzer with a shot from arc.

Duke 46 – 16 at the break. Next Sunday UNC travels over to Cameron Indoor Stadium for a BIG GAME.

Raina McGowens did her best to play Robin to Coyle as Batman. Coyle never left the floor and McGowens logged 35 minutes, scoring 10 points and snagging six rebounds.

Samaria Taylor played an expanded role and the 5’7 guard scored 11 points in her 24 minutes. The team huffed and puffed across all 40 minutes, leading 55-53 after McGowens final basket 🧺. ETSU ended the game on a 5-0 run to complete their South Carolina double, having tripped up Wofford on Thursday night.

Get Well Soon to Alyssa and hopefully 🙏 we will see 6’3 Kyraha Parnell ( Galax) back on the court before too long. Parnell has been sidelined since her injury back on January 10th.

Mom’s Chicken 🐔 Soup 🍲 might help things along !

5 regular season games remaining and despite the recent setbacks, the Paladins have an exciting three weeks before heading to Ashville.

Final Score – UNC 84 -56

Last Media TO – Duke 86 – 35, 95 – 36 (F)

15th straight victory, 13-0 in the ACC