SportsTalk: Vance Charter Names Athletes Of The Year

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Lance Stallings, Athletic Director for Vance Charter School, and his teams have been very successful on the field during the Spring sports season.  The school’s lacrosse team, co-conference champions with J.F. Webb, hosts a second round playoff game against Swansboro Friday night. The softball team is currently in second place in the conference and two golfers, Hunter Gill and Bill Taylor, have qualified for state regionals.

Stallings, who was on SportsTalk Thursday, also announced that senior Christian Bean has been named male Athlete of the Year for the second consecutive year and sophomore Katherine Suther has been named female Athlete of the Year.  “These two students are nominated and selected by the entire athletic department not just their coaches,” Stallings said.  Both Bean and Suther joined Stallings on SportsTalk to talk about the award.

Bean plays three sports at Vance Charter: cross country, lacrosse and basketball.  Once he graduates this year he plans on attending Appalachian State and majoring in recreation management. Suther also plays three sports: volleyball, basketball and soccer.  “Soccer is my favorite,” Suther said.  “We’ve grown together as a team.  We had a lot of freshmen who had never played before,” Suther said. Suther also said that even though she is only a sophomore she has already begun to look ahead to college where she is considering going into sports medicine.

Soccer is just winding up the regular season and plays Oxford Prep Thursday night.  A win by Vance Charter will ensure the team a share of the conference championship, but a loss will give Oxford Prep the title outright.

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SportsTalk: Orange Co. Speedway Is A Destination For Short Track Racing

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Stephen Dunn — race promoter, announcer and enthusiast — discussed short track, Saturday night racing at Orange County Speedway.  Also, we talked about North Wilkesboro and Hickory and the CARS Tour.

Dunn operates several businesses that help in the sport of racing and beyond.  He is Founder at RPM Group (rpmgroupnc.com), CEO at GXS Wraps (gxswraps.com) and Principal at Graphix Solution (graphixsolutionnc.com).

The Stickered Up Podcast, the Official podcast of the Solid Rock CARS Tour, is hosted by Dunn and can be found anywhere you download podcasts.

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Vance County High School

SportsTalk: Viper Football Starts Spring Workouts

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Football may be months away but the Vance County Vipers are busy with preparations as they start Spring workouts. Coach Aaron Elliott is back for his second season and is the only coach in the school’s history to return after their initial year. “We have been wide open for Spring workouts with great numbers. We had 45 kids on Monday. A lot more than we expected,” Elliott said, on Thursday’s SportsTalk.

The team is returning a number of star players from last year’s playoff team including all of last year’s starting linebackers. One of those returning players is Tashon Alston. Alston is also getting looks from division one schools. South Carolina has made an offer to Alston. “It felt good. It felt awesome to hear about the offer,” Alston said while joining his coach on the show.

Elliott is also pleased that his entire coaching staff from last season has remained intact and, while pleased with all of the players and coaches that are returning, he is also excited about new faces to the program. For the first time the Vipers now have a weight training instructor. “That was the missing piece to the puzzle,” Elliott said.

The Vipers will practice through the end of next week and then take a break for exams and graduation before ramping back up in June.

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Oxford Prep School

SportsTalk: Best Season Ever For Oxford Prep Softball

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It’s been a great year for Oxford Prep softball.  “We’re having a really good season. It’s the best year we’ve ever had,” said coach Tommy Anstead on Thursday’s SportsTalk.   Currently, Oxford Prep is 13-3 on the season with just three games remaining on their conference schedule.  One of those games is with Vance Charter while a double header with Voyager will take up the final two games.

Currently, Oxford Prep is number seven in the RPI rankings and will likely move up. “A lot of people underestimated us,” added coach Anstead.  One of the reasons is no one knew of the strong freshmen class.  These freshmen players included Addison Faucett. The freshmen pitcher has 118 strikeouts on the season.  Additionally, the team has five players batting over .400 on the season and Oxford Prep as a team has a batting average of .355.

If the final three games go as expected, meaning wins, then Oxford Prep will get a first round playoff game at home and a strong possibility of a second home playoff game. However, Anstead and Oxford Prep are trying not to look ahead.  “I tell the girls all the time to take it one game at a time,” Anstead said.

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SportsTalk: Highland Games Coming To Oxford Saturday

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Kilts and haggis and all things Scottish will descend on Oxford’s Central Children’s Home this Saturday for the Premier Highland Games.  Buck Buchanan, a board member of the Central Children’s Home, Organizer of the games and Scottish Descendent is expecting a big turnout for the event. “Last year we raised $10,000 in our first year. This year we are hoping for $25,000,” Buchanan said.  The money will all go to the Central Children’s Home.  “We want to provide a beautiful place for the children,” added Buchanan, and the money raised at Saturday’s free event will help.  While the event itself is free, there is a $20 fee for parking which also goes back to support the home.

The events will feature “large men and women” according to Buchanan.  These large men and women will be hurling heavy objects including 56 pound weights, 16 pound burlap bags, 20 pound Scottish hammers, 21 and 28 pound metal blocks, 18 pound river stones and logs in a variety of competitions.  All part of a Scottish tradition that goes back 700 years.

After the heavy objects are hurled you may need food, and there will be plenty of traditional Scottish food on hand from sausages and meat pies to haggis. Music will be provided by three pipe and drum bands to bring not only the sights but the sounds of Scotland to Oxford.

The event will take place 9  a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Central Children’s Home in Oxford at 211 W. Antioch Dr.

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SportsTalk: College Of Charleston Finding Success On The Baseball Field

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Will Dorton, Associate Head Baseball Coach and Pitching Coach at College of Charleston, talks about his team and their season. Dorton is married to the former Allison High of Henderson.

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SportsTalk: Vance Charter Lacrosse Ties For Conference Championship

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First year Vance Charter Lacrosse Head Coach Dan Sandlin is carrying on the family tradition at the school.  Sandlin has taken over for his father, Dennis, as the team’s head coach and has taken the defending conference champions to a tie for the conference title with J.F. Webb.

“Lacrosse is growing but, there are not a lot of 1A schools that have lacrosse,” Sandlin said on Wednesday’s SportsTalk.  With so few teams at the 1A level fielding a lacrosse team that means Sandlin has to compete against larger schools. “We try to schedule teams we can compete against,” Sandlin said.

The program has been very successful in the four years it has been offered at Vance Charter.  Coming off of last year’s conference championship has been a bit challenging as the team lost seven starters to graduation, but the defending champions are in the thick of it again this year with a solid core of players.

While the athletic side is certainly important to Sandlin, the academics are more so.  “We really try to help our guys know they are student-athletes with student coming first.”

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SportsTalk: KVA Baseball Plans Alumni Game

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A quick check of the gymnasium at Kerr-Vance Academy will find 20-plus state championship banners hanging there representing a variety of sports the school offers.  Six of those banners are for baseball championships. Those six championships began with the 2003 Spartan team.  While the ’03 team may have won a state championship perhaps their toughest opponent will come this Saturday when that legendary team will face off against the current KVA squad in an alumni fundraising game.

“It’s been in discussion since before Christmas of last year,” said Mike Joyner, KVA Athletic Director, on Wednesday’s SportsTalk. Joyner was approached by Robert Bowen and Tim Purvis, former members of the ’03 team, about the prospects of having the alumni game. “We have a full array of things planned,” Joyner added.

Bowen, Purvis and Joyner all worked together to bring Saturday’s game to the field at Kerr-Vance and money raised at the game will go back to the baseball program including some field improvements.

The 2003 team is now much older and Joyner said there may be some special rules in place to help the old timers out.

The game will take place at 11:30 a.m. at Kerr Vance Academy and admission is $7 for adults and $5 for children.

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SportsTalk: Dean Thomas Discusses The Challenges Of Game Officiating

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“It’s all about judgement” is the assessment of Dean Thomas when it comes to officiating ball games.  Thomas, a 1985 graduate of Vance Senior High School, has made many during his career as a baseball coach at Southern Vance, Head of Transportation for Vance County Schools, as a principal at E. M. Rollins and on the field as an official.

Thomas says officiating, like many other areas, is suffering from staff shortages. “Not a lot of young folks are getting into officiating,” Thomas said on Thursday’s SportsTalk.  Thomas says there is a move underway to encourage younger people to come in and do the work.  Thomas thinks that one of the reasons it’s been hard to find people to officiate athletic events is a lack of respect for those who umpire and referee games.  “Over the last 10 or 15 years it has gotten worse,” Thomas added. Thomas officiates four different sports including baseball, softball, volleyball and football.

He also sees a change in the kids playing too due to technology.  He said kids lack interpersonal skills because they are always on the phone texting. When they are face to face, “They don’t know how to talk to each other,” Thomas said.

Despite the challenges that come with officiating games Thomas says, in the end, “We are out there to do what’s right for the kids and what’s right for the game.”

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SportsTalk: Mize Leads The Fun In Fungo Baseball

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Brad Mize, the son of the late Howard and Lisa Mize of Oxford and former student at J.F. Webb in Oxford, certainly has his hands full.  He is an assistant baseball coach at Heritage High School in Wake Forest and the General Manager for Wake Forest’s Fungo Baseball team which will begin its season on May 27th.  Fungo features college players from a variety of colleges including UNCW, UNCG, College of Charleston, Hofstra, Elon, Mt. Olive, Louisburg and more.

“Between June 2nd and July 28th we will play fifty games,” Mize said on Thursday’s SportsTalk.  That’s a lot of baseball.  The team plays in Flaherty Park in Wake Forest and Mize said it’s a great fun atmosphere and cheaper than seeing the Mudcats or the Bulls play.  “Tickets are only $7 and kids under 12 get in free,” Mize said.  Special events are scheduled throughout the season like Thirsty Thursday, Hometown Heroes honoring local police and fire departments and the Centennial Weekend June 23rd through June 25th celebrating 100 years of baseball in Wake Forest.

It’s not all about baseball for Mize as part of his job is helping players find housing for two months.  “We are blessed to have local families that support us and take in players during the season,” Mize explained.

The first game for Fungo is an away game on May 27th.

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