Area Sports Briefs: Hightower named 3A Player of the Year
Published 12:00 am Saturday, June 8, 2024
- East Rowan’s Cobb Hightower celebrates. Photo Credit: Sean Meyers
From staff reports
A.L. Brown rising senior CJ Gray, a 6-foot-2 right-handed pitcher/shortstop, who is committed to N.C. State and plays for the South Charlotte Panthers, was clocked at 96 mph at the National Program Invitational in Georgia.
The son of former Livingstone football player Charlie Gray, Gray has elite hand speed and arm speed and owns one of the top fastballs in the Class of 2025.
He’s also getting Division I offers as a quarterback.
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Grace Christian pitcher Cameron Seagroves, a Campbell recruit, is the Gatorade Baseball Player of the Year for North Carolina.
Heart of a Champion
HS track
HS football
HS athletics
HS basketball
Jim Baker, a member of the 2024 Salisbury-Rowan Hall of Fame class, will be coaching Cannon School’s boys basketball team next season.
A North Rowan and Catawba College graduate, who was Catawba’s head coach for 20 seasons, Baker has been at Central Cabarrus in recent seasons and guided the Vikings to 65 straight wins and to NCHSAA 3A championships in 2023 and 2024.
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Jamyrah Cherry, a standout for Salisbury last season, will play for Winston-Salem Christian’s national team next season.
HS girls soccer
Salisbury Maddie Crabb and Stella Koontz; South Rowan’s Ava Schleyer; West Rowan’s Tempe Jones; Carson’s Haylee Feehan, and East Rowan’s Lillian Jeffers made all-region teams announced by the North Carolina Soccer Coaches Association.
College baseball
NC Wesleyan pitcher Cord Butler (A.L. Brown) was named a Division III All-American.
College football
Georgia linebacker Jalon Walker (Salisbury) is one of the 42 players on the watch list for the Lott IMPACT Trophy.
The award gets its name from NFL Hall of Fame defensive back Ronnie Lott. IMPACT stands for Integrity, Maturity, Performance, Academics, Community and Tenacity.
The award goes to a defensive player each year who has made an impact off the field as well as on it and is the only major college football award that considers character as well as on-field achievements.
College baseball
Former Catawba baseball star David Thomas was inducted into the South Atlantic Conference Hall of Fame.
“He was our Mickey Mantle,” Catawba coach Jim Gantt said of the switch-hitting center fielder, who wore No. 7.
Pro basketball
KJ Sherrill (West Rowan) was part of a championship team in his first year coaching in Germany.
The 32-year Sherrill played eight seasons overseas and played college basketball at Charlotte and Augusta, where he teamed with his younger brother, Keshun Sherrill. Sherrill coaches the Dragons Rhondorf in the German B League.
Rowan Bulls
Avery Patterson (A.L. Brown) can still shoot.
Patterson, who played college ball at St. John’s, had a 65-point game in April for the Rowan Bulls. He made 14 3-pointers.
Patterson scored 43 in a game last week.
The Bulls play in Fayetteville on Sunday.
Track and field
Rowan athletes competed in early June in the Body Armor State Games in Charlotte.
