Area Sports Briefs: Walker, Biggers, Hampton getting attention
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, March 25, 2020
Salisbury outside linebacker Jalon Walker, a sophomore, is officially a four-star football recruit.
Walker, the son of Catawba head coach Curtis Walker, already has offers from Texas A&M, Duke, Kentucky, N.C. State, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest.
Walker (6-3, 205) is ranked 176th in the Class of 2022 nationally. He’s been invited to participate in the Under Armour All-America Camp series.
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A.L. Brown outside linebacker Torren Wright (6-3, 210) is another four-star recruit and is ranked 152nd nationally. Wright has offers from Kentucky and South Carolina.
Ten North Carolina high school players in the Class of 2022 are rated as four-star recruits by 247Sports.com.
The highest-ranked player in the state is Grimsley defensive tackle Travis Shaw, who is ranked 30th nationally and has offers from Alabama and LSU, among others.
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West Rowan defensive tackle Zeek Biggers, a junior who is rated as a three-star recruit, received an offer from East Carolina in the past week.
Biggers (6-6, 315) already had gotten offers from Georgia Tech, Georgia State, Liberty and Akron.
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Davie quarterback Nate Hampton, a junior, is rated as a three-star recruit. Hampton (6-6, 230) has offers from North Carolina, N.C. State, Duke, Wake Forest, Appalachian State, Charlotte, Coastal Carolina, West Virginia, South Carolina, Oklahoma State and Kentucky, among others.
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Davie back Tate Carney (5-11, 190), a sophomore, has been offered by Wake Forest, the school where his brother, Cade, recently finished a fine career as a running back.
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Former West Rowan offensive lineman Keldrick “KJ” Wilson (6-5, 300), who has announced that he’s transferring from Hampton as a graduate student with football eligibility, is in the transfer portal and has racked up a ton of offers, including recent ones from Indiana, West Virginia and Pittsburgh.
Men’s college basketball
Livingstone’s Roger Ray was named first team All-Atlantic Region.
Ray led the CIAA in scoring and assists with 23.3 points and five assists per game while shooting just under 43 percent from the field.
The Raleigh native ranked second in the conference at over 36 percent from three and shot 81 percent from the line.
Ray’s 45 points against Virginia State were the most by a player in the CIAA this season. The guard is a three-time All-CIAA selection and finished his career as Livingstone’s all-time leader in scoring and assists.
First team — Roger Ray, Livingstone; Jake Biss, Shippensburg; Dalton Bolon, West Liberty; Armoni Foster, IUP; Malik Miller, IUP; Terrell Leach, Virginia Union
Second team — Robert Colon, Winston-Salem State; John Paul Kromka, Pitt Johnstown; Brent Pegram, California (Pa.); Drew Rackley, Charleston; John Castello, Shippensburg
Coach of the Year — Joe Lombardi, IUP
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Catawba senior guard Devin Cooper earned second team All-Southeast Region honors from the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
The teams were announced on Monday .
Cooper started all 30 games this season for the Catawba Indians and averaged 18.1 points a game. He connected on just over 40 percent of his field-goal attempts and made 61 three-pointers. Cooper led the team in assists (122) and steals (43).
First Team — DaQuan Abrom, Belmont Abbey; Daniel Carr, Queens; Jordan Floyd, King; Courvoisier McCauley, Lincoln Memorial; Akia Pruitt, UNC Pembroke; Devin Whitfield, Lincoln Memorial
Second Team— Faison Brock, USC Aiken; Devin Cooper, Catawba; Romeao Ferguson, Belmont Abbey; R.J. Gunn, Lenoir Rhyne; Rafael Monteiro, Augusta
Coach of the Year: Josh Schertz, Lincoln Memorial
