GC Grizzlies

I guess I'll just talk to myself. I guess no one else is reading this board since its not football season. Grainger is in Gibbs (hardball classic) tournament finals Saturday. They defeated defending State Champion Gibbs 7-4 on Thursday and Morristown East 7-6 Friday. Grainger plays Cumberland Gap on Monday and Tuesday in district play.

South Greene over Grainger Monday 7-1. SG hit the ball really well and received a 2 hit pitching performance. Grainger defeated South Greene on Tuesday 13-0. They seemed to show up ready to play after a poor performance yesterday. Brandon Satorious threw a 2 hitter for Grainger (I believe) Grainger really hit the ball well today. Konner Brabson hit his second homerun against SG in two days. Jake Corum and Dylan Evans had multiple hits as everyone picked it up and evened the matchup with SG. This puts Grainger @ 2-1 in district play. WINS-Greenville and SG / LOSSES- South Greene. How does everybody stand in district play?

Grainger Grizzlies defeated Greenville 7-3 on Monday. Good game, Grainger led from start to finish. Both teams looked solid for the first of the year. Good pitching and hitting by both teams. Tuesdays game was rained out. How did everyone else fair to start the week of district play?

Jake got hurt in the SG game. My sources are only coming from other kids that are friends with Jake, so this is not 100%. The last word I heard was he has a small meniscus and mcl tear, but is not expected to have to have surgery. Hopefully FULL RECOVERY for baseball season! Jake is a great kid, so please keep him in your thoughts/prayers as he deals with his recovery.

I have kids and had kids come through the Rutledge and Grainger programs. Believe you me, there is not any shortage of running at practices. Perhaps a "conditioning program" is not exactly what you would call it, but there is definitely not any lack of running. The big problem I see is so many of the guys have to play both ways. They are worn down by the second half. I know other teams have guys going both ways, but usually only 3 or 4 guys. Grainger has way too many players having to play both offense and defense at important and vunerable positions.

I agree that wrestling could keep the guys in great shape and definitely improve their mental toughness. I dont see it happening anytime soon though. There is not any wrestling in the middle school and not much interest in the high school because of that. Also, I cant think of anyone at the middle or high school that could even coach wrestling. I dont see Coach Briscoe taking on another sport. Good idea, just not gonna happen.

The Grizzlies do not have much if any depth. They start several underclassmen and when they sub they are bringing in more Sophomores and or Freshmen. They have some solid Seniors who are playing their hearts out, but it looks like another one or two win season for the Grizzlies. The Grizzlies have been in several of the games at halftime, but as the game wears down they do too. They may be better next season, but the prospects of being much better than .500 looks slim. I dont have any answers, but the guys still are playing hard and fighting every Friday night! Good luck Grizzlies the rest of the way!

Grainger 22 West Green 20. Just like last year, I see Grainger wearing down the Buffs as the game goes late into the fourth quarter. The Grizzlies will pound the rock 50+ times and win a close one. Last year West Greenes line seemed to get tired and wore down late in the game.

At last count the standings looked something like this... 1. Grainger 2. Greenville 3. South Greene 4. Cumberland Gap...Chuckey Doak (not sure 4,5) 6. West Greene 7. Claiborne I believe #1 gets a bye and games are single elimination for first round. 2-7, 3-6, 4-5. #1 would play 4-5 winner, with 2-7 winner playing 3-6 winner in double elimination. This may not be exactly correct. If anyone has corrections, please post.

Anyone have any scores from Friday night?

I think the makeup game for Grainger and Greenville is @ Greenville this Friday. Should be a good one. It also should have huge bearings on the tournament seedings. I know both would like to stay away from South Greene if possible. But, I think the 4,5,6 teams could be dangerous in a one game format with their best pitcher on the hill. Gonna be exciting tournament @ Tusculum College's Beautiful Field!

Grainger, South Greene, Greenville may be the top teams, but WG and CG can be dangerous. Grainger hasnt played CD yet, so I dont know much about them. Grainger has one loss in conference play (to Greenville in 8 innings) and has two games with CD and one with Greenville left. The Grainger-Greenville makeup game will be extremely important to the standings. I'm not sure about everyone else, but I think this is how the top three look in the loss department. Greenville 1 loss Grainger 1 loss SG 3 losses

Grainger (7-1) defeated WG Monday 11-0, Tuesday 7-3. Big makeup game Friday @ South Greene. Where does everyone else stand in Conference play?

I saw where Grainger defeated CG 8-4. That makes them 5-1 in conference play. Someone told me the conference tournament was at Tusculum. Does anyone know if that is correct or not? If anyone knows the standings right now could you please post it. Or at least post your teams record. Grainger 5-1 WON Claiborne (2) South Greene Cumberland Gap (2) LOST Greenville

We are well into the season and it's shaping up to be a good one. There has been some good baseball played so far and I think the stretch run and tournament will be very exciting. What is everyone's take on what has happened so far and what do you think we can expect to see from here on out? I am obviously a Grainger fan and I think they have been pretty competitive in all their games. They lost a 3-2 eight inning game against Greenville after leading 2-0 for about six innings. They defeated South Greene on a good contest 6-3. The other games with these two were rained out and rescheduled for later. Grainger defeated CG 11-0 today and will play the second game tomorrow. Greenville really hits the ball well and the lefty is a crafty pitcher. South Greene will also be tough to beat on any given day they always hit the ball well and play hard. I don't know anything about WG or CD, but I think they split. Grainger is 4-1...with wins over SG, CG, and two against Claiborne. Their loss came at the hands of Greenville. How does everyone else stand in the conference? Does anyone know where the tournament will be played this year?

Claiborne has a good team. They have some good guys back with experience. I saw Greenville play @ Grainger and they were not impressive at all. Grainger has one of the weakest teams they have had in years and could have won the game at the end with a three. All the good Greenville guys must play football. lol Good luck to Claiborne the rest of the season. Grainger and Claiborne were supposed to play tonight. Mother Nature had other ideas.

Good job Greenville. Best of luck the rest of the way. Sure would be great to have a State Champion from the Blue Ridge Conference. You guys have a great bunch of young men. Best of luck.

Cumberland Gap scores with 1:35 to go in the fourth quarter to win 26-24. The Grizzlies go down to the 20 yard line and end up throwing a interception with under a minute to play. Great game by both teams. The Grizzlies battled a lot of tough circumstances this season and they kept fighting. Thanks to all the guys that toughed it out and kept playing hard! Good luck to both teams next season. I believe both will return a lot of players with experience for next year.

Grainger has had a lot of bad luck this season. They were down this year from the beginning of the season. When they first started a 5-5 year would have been considered a really good year. They have lost two of their best three lineman due to discipline issues, four seniors quit on a Monday after a dissapointing loss (I'm sure there was two sides to that story), the best remaining lineman has been out several weeks with a dislocated elbow, the two biggest guys left on the line did not dress @ Claiborne last week due to injuries (both of those guys go around 6-4 280), two others walked off the team and asked to come back and were allowed to come back after internal punishment which also included 1-2 games suspension from playing. The flu bug hit them hard one week which did not help at all with the remaining players. It just seems that these guys have had to battle all year one thing or another. The remaining football players are tough and dedicated. There are just not enough of them to go around. It looks like they play about 15 guys total during a game. This is including several guys that would have only played JV in a normal season. The coaches do a good job with what they have to work with. The team works just as hard as they would have if they had all the players they began the season. When you have to replace over 1/2 of your starting 22 positions it is hard to overcome. This is a great bunch of guys and they will keep working hard. Good luck to all the players that toughed it out and stuck with it.

Grainger goes to 4-1 Claiborne tomorrow night. This looks to be another tough matchup for the undermanned Grizzlies. They have lost so many players from the beginning of the season. I know they will be keying on the prolific running attack of the Bulldogs. Even though Grainger's passing game is not extremely strong, they will have to throw the ball more as the year goes on to help out the running game. They need to throw more passes on first down and not be as predictable. If you are thin at as many positions as Grainger is now, you have to have any advantage you can get. Being just a running team and throwing on third and long will not be good enough the rest of the season for the Grizzlies. They can still compete in games if they are more flexible with their offense. The kids are still playing hard, but they are really short handed. If they can slow down CC in the run game, they have a shot. School is out Thursday and Friday for illness, I hope the team is not hit with a lot of sickness again. Good luck guys! Keep playing hard and go get 'dem Dawgs.

I don't think either of the two has seperated themself enough from the other to get all the PT. Corum has been the main starter with Coffman coming off the bench some. Both are decent throwing the ball, Corum is more mobile than Coffman, but neither can run very well. Neither is very athletic for the QB position, but they manage the wingT offense well enough to be serviceable. They are both great kids! Its kinda unfair to judge them based on what we have been used to at the QB position the last few years. The coaches don't ask the QB to do too much in this new offense, though. I think they will both continue to see action with Corum probably seeing the majority of the time. Coffmans PT will be dependent of how well or how poorly Corum plays.

This was a much needed win for the guys. They persevered so much over the last week or so and I am glad to see them get another victory. They had to play about 12-15 guys all night and it will probably be like that the rest of the season. All the players that have stuck with it need to know we are so proud of them. Corum and Coffman did play well, but lets not forget Chevy Helton taking the 15-20 yard pass, making a guy miss and turning it into a 55 yard TD! The O line has to get a huge compliment for grinding out the yards straight ahead all night. The backs ran and blocked hard as well. It was good to see Connor Brabston back from a broken nose, too. I think this was his first game back and he was all over the field on defense all night. This was just a great team victory and the Grizzlies deserve this one! Good luck Friday night against Pigeon Forge.

What the heck is going on with the Grizzlies? This may just be rumor, but my source is usually pretty accurate. I am hearing that four Senoirs quit the team on Monday and another Junior quit on Tuesday. This makes a total of 12 out of the 22 starting positions since the Jamboree are no longer on the team. They have either quit the team, been kicked off or are injured. WOW! That is unbelievable. I know they were going to be down some this season, but now it seems almost insurmountable. I sure hope the remaining guys can pull it together for Friday. They play Chuckey Doak at home and really need a win. This would be the best medicine for the boys right now. The players that have toughed this out really need our support right now. Lets all go out and support them Friday! Good luck Grizzlies!