The potential for snow on Thursday has led the North Carolina High School Athletic Association to postpone the opening round of the State Wrestling Championships.
The Big 8 men’s and women’s basketball tournament, which started on Tuesday, will now have to finish by Saturday–if it finishes at all.
In a statement released by the NCHSAA on its website on Wednesday night, the association postponed the first day of the 2020 individual wrestling state tournament due to the possibility of a wintry mix in the Triad. The tournament, scheduled to begin on Thursday afternoon at the Greensboro Coliseum, is still slated to conclude on Saturday night.
“The NCHSAA Staff is working on a schedule that will still allow the tournament to be completed on Saturday night,” the statement read. “More details and an updated schedule will be released Thursday through the NCHSAA Website and other communication avenues.”
Orange High had three wrestlers scheduled to start competing on Thursday. Brendon Worsham, who finished 2nd in the Mideast Regionals last weekend at Cape Fear High, will take on Justin Bellran of St. Stephens, who came in 3rd in the West Region.
At 126 pounds, Orange’s Kessel Summers will square off with Havelock’s Nate Lucio in the opening round. That will be a rematch from earlier this year. On January 11 in the Havelock Duals, Summers scored a major decision over Lucio 14-5. Summers finished 3rd in the Mideast Regionals.
Xavier Tinnen, seeded 4th, will face Midwest Regional champion Amir Joseph of Parkwood in the opening round. Tinnen, who is 22-8, qualified for the state championship for the first time last weekend after a fourth place finish.
The respective Big 8 basketball tournaments were supposed to resume on Thursday with doubleheaders at Northwood High in Pittsboro and Southern Durham High. Both Chatham County and Durham Public Schools announced on Wednesday night that schools would be closed on Thursday, leading to the postponement of the four scheduled games.
At Southern Durham, third-seeded Chapel Hill will face second-seeded Southern Durham in the women’s game at 6, followed by the men’s game between third-seeded Vance County vs. 2nd-seeded Southern Durham.
The Northwood women’s team is slated to face 5th-seeded East Chapel Hill in the other semifinal at 6 in Pittsboro. At 7:30, the top-seeded Northwood men’s team will host 5th-seeded Chapel Hill.
The postponement means the semifinals are now scheduled for Friday night, and the championship games on Saturday at the higher-seed’s gymnasium. However, the tournament must be completed by Saturday. Another cancellation on Friday likely means the tournament won’t be completed.
If that’s the case, Northwood will be the #1 seed from the Big 8 Conference in both the men’s and women’s tournaments since they won the regular season championship in both races. Southern Durham finished runner-up in both races and would get the #2 seed (normally, the tournament winner would get the #2 seed if it isn’t one of the top two teams).
On Thursday morning, the NCHSAA announced that seeding for the state playoffs would be delayed until Sunday morning.
All four Hillsborough teams were eliminated in the opening rounds of the Big 8 Tournaments on Tuesday. The only local squad with a chance to earn a state playoff spot is the Orange women’s team, who finished 6th in the Big 8 Conference and has a MaxPreps ranking of #59. HighSchoolOT, run by Nick Stevens, has repeatedly had Orange as among the last five teams in the state playoffs in recent projections. If the Lady Panthers make the field of 64, it would be their fourth trip to the state playoffs in the last five years.