Granville Central High School Atletic Director Ray Noel was obviously disappointed at his school’s 3 – 1 loss at the hands of Perquimans County on Wednesday night in the Eastern finals of the state baseball playoffs but is looking forward to a new conference for the upcoming school year.
Perquimans County had won its previous playoff games by scores of 13 – 0, 10 – 0 and 10 – 0 but Granville Central held them to only 3 runs and was leading in the bottom of the 5th inning but came up short in the end as they were unable to put together a rally at the end. Graduation will certainly have an impact next season. “We’ll lose three seniors and two of our top hitters are seniors,” Noel said. However, Noel feels that next season’s team has an excellent chance of having a good year.
Next year will find Granville Central playing Oxford Webb, South Granville, Vance County, Carrboro, Southern Durham and the Durham School of the Arts in a new conference. While the School of the Arts does not participate in football the other schools will present a challenging schedule. It should be a football season that is closer to normal than last season when the team only played six games in the spring due to the pandemic.
Covid has also pushed spring sports back with programs such as track and wrestling still playing. The track team will finish this weekend in the state championship.
Like so many other schools in the area Granville Central is a small school that shares players among its athletic programs which impacts activities like basketball workouts. There have been no basketball jamborees or camps this spring because so many of the players are involved in other sports.
Noel said that the boy’s soccer team, which won last year’s conference championship is poised to have another strong season and he feels good about the growth that soccer has seen in recent years. He also feels the football team will also be competitive next season and looks forward to seeing big crowds at games this year which began to return with Granville Central’s playoff run in baseball.
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