Randleman’s Ryan White watches the ball as he strokes a hit in last week’s 9-1 baseball victory at Asheboro.
With the spring regular seasons about one-third of the way complete in many cases, several Randolph County teams began this week with unblemished records.
The group includes the Randleman baseball team, the Providence Grove softball team and the Wheatmore girls’ soccer team.
Randleman moved to 8-0 with some dominating baseball results. The Tigers have outscored opponents by a combined 87-7 score.
Providence Grove has had similar success in softball. The Patriots rolled to 8-0 with a cumulative margin of 80-3.
Providence Grove could receive a stiff challenge in a home game Friday night against Eastern Randolph, which racked up 85 runs across its first eight games (going 6-2 during that stretch).
In soccer, Wheatmore was off to a 6-0-0 start. In those games, the Warriors scored a total of 48 goals without allowing a goal. The team’s leading goal scorer was Ellie Garrison with 17 goals.
Wheatmore’s closest game so far came in its second contest of the season in a 4-0 non-conference decision at Asheboro.
In boys’ tennis, Uwharrie Charter Academy prevailed in its first four Piedmont Athletic Conference matches.
Trinity’s Hodges jumps to record
Dylan Hodges of Trinity set a meet record with a high jump of 6 feet, 4 inches in the 12th edition of the Mighty Viking Invitational at North Stokes.
Hodges, a junior, ended up with a 4-inch victory on runner-up Demaree Clark of Fayetteville Christian School in Saturday’s meet.
Hodges was in an elite category. His effort resulted in one of only two records set Saturday in competition that included entrants from 13 boys’ teams and 18 girls’ teams.
Trinity placed third in the boys’ standings with 69 points, behind only Greensboro Dudley (130) and Winston-Salem Reynolds (87).
Former football coach dies
Paul Gay, a member of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association’s Hall of Fame, died last week at age 90. He’s a former football coach at Sanford Central (now called Lee County).
Gay’s teams racked up a 177-75-10 record with Sanford from 1960-85. The team won a state championship in 1977. The stadium at Lee County is named after Gay.
