Weather has forced CHHS and East Chapel Hill to reschedule several basketball events.
East Chapel Hill played at Apex one day early last week to avoid Friday’s snow and lost the hastily arranged game, 49-41. The Wildcats will play Northern Durham on Thursday and host Southern Durham on Friday in consecutive PAC-6 games, says East Chapel Hill athletic director and basketball coach Ray Hartsfield.
For Chapel Hill, this week’s Carolina 3-A Conference games with Northern Vance are moved to tonight. “From what I hear, the weather and roads up there are worse than here, so we will have to wait and see if they will be in school on Wednesday,” CHHS athletic director and basketball coach Tod Morgan said.
The Tigers’ non-conference games with Northern Durham will have to be moved to allow Chapel Hill to complete its conference schedule. Times for CHHS-Northern had not been set as of press time for today’s editions of the Chapel Hill News.
CHHS still plans to play Oxford Webb on Friday, Southern Vance next Tuesday and Cardinal Gibbons on Feb. 10.

Eagles flying high

Cresset Christian Academy’s boys’ basketball team, which has become a regular contender in the NCISAA ranks since Sammy Hatchell took over as head coach, had run out to a 15-5 start this season. Andre Perez leads the team in both scoring (13.6 ppg) and recounding (6 rpg).

Another record for Carly Smith

North Carolina freshman swimmer Carly Smith broke the UNC school record in the 100-yard backstroke when she clocked a 53.51 in a loss to No. 9 Virginia. Smith also posted season-bests in the 200-yard backstroke (1:57.31) and the 100-yard butterfly (56.03).
Smith holds the NCHSAA 100 backstroke record (:54.95) and set the site record at N.C. State’s Carmichael Pool in the event while still a student at Chapel Hill High School.

Bolas serves a rabbit for fellow Badger

Chapel Hill High School grad and NCHSAA mile-record holder Jack Bolas did his best last weekend to help University of Wisconsin teammate Craig Miller make a run at the record book for the Camp Randall Memorial track. Miller was chasing the 30-year-old indoor-mile record Saturday in the Wisconsin Elite Invitational.
Bolas served as the rabbit for Miller and took the field through the first 1, 200 meters right on pace at 30 seconds per lap. Once Bolas dropped out, Miller dropped the field into his rearview mirror and ran through the finish in an elite time (4:00.78) despite no longer having any competition to help push him.
“That’s a big factor,” Miller said. “When Jack stepped off, I was trying a lot harder just to run the same pace. It’s definitely easier to follow somebody and let them set the pace.”
Miller’s blistering time of in the mile was just off the pace necessary to break Steve Lacy’s track record of 4:00.40 from 1978.
It was fast enough, however, to tie Miller for the national lead in the mile. Because his time was run a flat 200-meter track, it is converted and officially recognized as by the NCAA as 3:58.98.

Lowball at Pinehurst CC

Golfers have until Feb. 25 to take advantage of the discount currently honored at Pinehurst Resort. An overnight stay, breakfast buffet and a round on Pinehurst No. 2 (or a 50-minute spa treatment) costs $222. That’s less expensive that the cost of accommodations alone 10 years ago.

Everyone loves the Tar Heels in preseason

With nearly three weeks to go before opening day, the North Carolina baseball program has claimed its fourth preseason top 25 ranking, the latest from Rivals.com Monday. The Tar Heels, who have been rated as high as No. 11 in the USA Today/ESPN coaches’ poll, are coming off an Atlantic Coast Conference record four-straight College World Series appearances.
UNC was rated No. 13 by both Collegiate Baseball and No. 20 by Baseball America. PING! Baseball ranked the Tar Heels No. 23 entering 2010.
The program owns the nation’s longest active streak with four consecutive CWS appearances, also was picked to finish third in the Coastal Division of the ACC by the league’s 12 coaches. Carolina was 48-18 a year ago and will open the 2010 season at Boshamer Stadium, Feb. 19, hosting George Washington.
CHHS alum Tarron Robinson is now a redshirt sophomore at first base for the Tar Heels.

UNC gets three more

The comings and goings at Notre Dame helped North Carolina land a highly sought running back on Friday, boosting their class just in time for today’s national signing day.
UNC got the commitment it was seeking from Gio Bernard of Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) St. Thomas Aquinas, who had previously committed to Notre Dame. The Tar Heels also added two other Floridians, defensive end Tim Jackson of Gibbs High in St. Petersburg, and Tre Boston, a former Cincinnati commitment from North Fort Myers High.
(For the latest on all football signings today, see www.newsobserver.com ) Jackson, at a news conference at his school carried live by TampaBay.com, plopped a North Carolina baseball cap on his head Friday afternoon to announce that he had chosen the Tar Heels over Wake Forest and Mississippi State. He is 6 feet 4 and 215 pounds and rated a three-star prospect (out of a possible five) by Scout.com.
Bernard, 5-9, 205, was a four-year regular at St. Thomas Aquinas. He rushed for 1, 650 yards as a junior and averaged close to 10 yards per carry while helping the school to the No. 1 national ranking. He had committed to Notre Dame last fall but didn’t think South Bend Dame was the best place for him after its coaching changes.
"I don’t know why North Carolina wasn’t in my thinking last fall,” said Bernard, who changed his mind after visiting Chapel Hill. "It was the whole thing -- the facilities, the players and coaches, the education. I just know I want to go there." Boston, who’s 6-1, 175, was the Class 3A player of the year in Florida and could play wide receiver or defensive back. Boston re-evaluated his commitment to Cincinnati after coach Brian Kelly left the Bearcats to coach Notre Dame.
"He wouldn’t even have considered North Carolina if there hadn’t been a coaching change,” North Fort Myers coach Barry Goettemiller said, “but ... he's happy, and I’m happy for him."

— Ken Tysiac/www.newsobserver.com

Run in Raleigh for a worthy cause

A favorite of runners in Chapel Hill-Carrboro as much as anywhere in the Triangle, the sixth annual Krispy Kreme Challenge, will be held Saturday in Raleigh.
A record 6, 000 runners are expected for the race that benefits the North Carolina Children’s Hospital. (Registration, capped at 6, 000 due to road capacity of Hillsborough Street, is closed, but organizers are encouraging individuals to support the event by financial donations and merchandise purchases via http://krispykremechallenge.com/ http://krispykremechallenge.com/
To complete the Krispy Kreme Challenge, competitors begin at the N.C. State Bell Tower at 8:30 a.m., run two miles to the Krispy Kreme store on Peace Street, eat a dozen doughnuts, and run two miles back to the Bell Tower — all in under one hour.
Beginning as a dare between 10 N.C. State students in 2004, the competition has grown exponentially and raised $40, 000 for North Carolina Children’s Hospital.

Carolina gets some wins indoors amid ice

The Dick Taylor Carolina Classic at UNC was cut short by last weekend’s ice and snow, but Tar Heel linebacker Zach Brown still had enough time to set a new school record (6.72) in the men’s 60. The heptathlon was hit worst by the snow and ice, which prompted cancellation of the men’s last three events Saturday, and that nullified all previous totals, including those of Chapel Hill High grad Matthew Villemain, now a senior at UNC. Villemain had a personal best in the shot put at 35-10.5 before the end of competition.
The second day of the Classic was canceled so visiting teams could make it back home before being snowed in. Those events scheduled for that day will not be made up.

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