Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2010

Caryites sweep Dogwood

A successful summer for Cary-area youth golfers reached its high-water mark on Friday at the Dogwood State Junior Championships in Holly Springs.

Athens Drive sophomore Sarah Bae took home the girls' championship with a three-round score of 233. Green Hope junior Will Thomas captured the boys' title with a playoff-hole win.

Thomas, who also finished second at the Junior All-Star at Penn State, will be invited to represent the Carolinas Golf Association in the Carolinas-Virginias junior team matches in 2011.

Earlier this summer, Bae's younger brother Eric captured an individual tournament title. Cary Academy senior Taelor Rubin has also walked away with top honors at a tournament, as has Athens Drive graduate Katherine Perry.

Cary gets Glaxo invite: The Cary High boys basketball team will be participating in this winter's GlaxoSmithKline Holiday Invitational. The Imps, an NCHSAA playoff team a year ago, were recommended to executive director Bill Sewell by a number of people who have seen Cary compete this summer. "Their name kept popping up," Sewell said.

Cary gets the nod to the prestigious Christmastime tournament, held at Broughton's Holiday Gymnasium, after Upper Room Academy failed to get into the NCISAA.

The Glaxo can only select teams from the NCHSAA and NCISAA to be sanctioned by the National High School Athletic Association.

"I talked to other people ... who are in the know in area basketball. And from the summer leagues and the summer camps people had said they were doing very well," Sewell said. "They seem to be one of the better teams in the area."

Cary joins Middle Creek from the Tri-Nine Conference as Glaxo participants. The Glaxo has filled out its eight-team girls tournament and 15 of the 16 boys basketball slots for its two eight-team brackets. An invitation is currently out to Forsyth Country Day.

Battle commits to Richmond: Amber Battle, a 6-foot-2 senior for Middle Creek, has committed to Richmond and will sign with the basketball program in the fall. Battle chose the Spiders over Western Carolina and Appalachian State.

Battle enters her senior year ranked third on the school's all-time scoring list. She is also the Lady Mustangs career leader in blocked shots (286) and rebounds (518). She also holds the school record for single season free throw percentage (89 percent).

Battle averaged 11 points, eight rebounds and four blocks per game last season.

She is the second Tri-Nine girls basketball player to commit to a Division I college after Natiece Ford committed to Clemson. She's also the second player in Middle Creek to ever commit to a D-1 school after Kristine Rishel did last year to Winthrop.

New Catamounts logos: Panther Creek opened in 2006, but the school is already changing its logos. The new logos are more blue than black, unlike the previous ones. And the new Catamount, well, looks more like a Catamount. The older one looked more like a Panther -- adding some confusion to what the school's mascot was.