Several Grand Strand football players to announce college commitments

It should be an active Wednesday for the prep football landscape.

Several Grand Strand players will finalize or make their commitments to various colleges at different levels. Most notable are Myrtle Beach players T.J. Jones (Kentucky) and Tyler Knox (North Carolina State), who have been firm on their verbal commitments to their respective schools for some time.

Most of the action is going to fall to the NCAA Division II level, where at least a dozen local players are expected to sign this week.

Conway offensive lineman Bernard Brooks committed to Newberry last week after an official visit to the school. Brooks, who was a SCADA North-South selection, was a four-year starter for the Tigers.

Fellow Tigers Robert Nelson and Cole Watson also each picked up offers from both Newberry and North Greenville, and as of last check, the defensive back and receiver were still weighing their options.

Carolina Forest will likely have five players sign Wednesday.

Jarvez Holmes, who received an early offer from Georgia Tech but failed to qualify, will ink with Georgia Military. He’ll have an open recruitment after his time at the prep school, but there’s a good shot he’ll end up with the Yellow Jackets.

Christian Lewis will sign with NCAA Division II Tusculum in Tennessee. Quarterback Danny Daly is committed to N.C. Division II school Methodist; guard Blaine Kowalkowski is down to Franklin (Ind.), Valparaiso (Ind.) and Methodist; and receiver Aaron Williams, who fell short of admission standards at Elon, will be committing to Louisburg College, a junior college in North Carolina.

Georgetown offensive tackle Cory Ward appears headed for Southern Conference school Georgia Southern, a member of the Football Championship Subdivision. Fellow Bulldog and defensive tackle LeeShawn Cromedy, also a North-South selection, has committed to North Greenville.

Georgetown coach Bradley Adams was waiting on decisions from Trenton Grate-Reed and tailback Leonard Leake, but expects those soon.

Nick Davis – who played running back, receiver and defensive back at Waccamaw – will sign sometime this week or next with the Greenville Titans, a football program in the Upstate. The feeder program – which also signed Georgetown offensive lineman Darius Brown last year – allows students an opportunity to continue their playing career while attending one of a handful of smaller universities in the Greenville area. The Titans play a junior college/prep school schedule.

Waccamaw’s Malcolm Gibbs will be taking a similar route. The linebacker plans to sign with the Apprentice School, a prep school in Newport News, Va.

Three other Seahawks will commit to smaller programs.

Daquarius Wilson, The Toast of the Coast Defensive Player of the Year, is deciding between Lenoir-Rhyne and North Carolina Central. Receiver Quan Wilson and defensive end Kerry Chestnut are likely going to commit to junior college programs, although coach Mickey Wilson said the two players had not decided which ones.

‘Winning mentality’

In the nine years of St. James High School, neither the boys nor girls basketball teams has ever won a region title.

Both teams are in position to change that this season with four games left in the regular season.

The St. James girls stand at 6-0 and two games ahead of second-place Myrtle Beach in Region VIII-AAA. The boys team (5-1) is tied for first with Wilson and has already defeated the Tigers once this season.

Sharks boys coach Monty Carr said a “winning mentality” has taken over the students of various programs. And whether it stems from players crossing over into other sports or simply watching their peers achieve on the various sports fields, courts and mats, athletes are starting to realize success can be achieved at the school.

“We can never count out coincidence, but winning breeds winning,” Carr said. “High expectations breed high expectations. You can also say that about our wrestling team. … There’s a sense of pride. We’re fortunate right now.”

The successes of the Sharks baseball and wrestling teams helped inspire the two basketball teams. Robbie Centracchio’s baseball squad won the Class AAA state title last spring, and Matt Anderson’s wrestling team is ranked No. 1 in Class AAA in advance of the state playoffs, which begin Wednesday.

Carr admitted also that seeing all those wins pile up for the girls team in advance of boys games started to have an impact. The Sharks started the season 0-4. Since then, they are 10-3.

The impetus for the turnaround notwithstanding, Carr admits it took a very short period of time for his team to surpass one of its primary objectives.

“We made it a goal to make the playoffs,” said Carr, whose team will accomplish that with a win Tuesday at Georgetown. “If you told me at the beginning of the season that we were competing for a region championship with how many talented players we lost from last season, I would have giggled.”

What charity?

As area basketball teams get closer and closer to having their playoff seedings materialize or evaporate, many can look to the free-throw line.

Late fouls can be the difference between squads getting a crucial win or devastating loss. But work from the charity stripe doesn’t start in late January.

The best free-throw shooters are in the gym over the summer getting repetition in place. The even better ones are being stressed on the routine all season during practice.

“Every day after practice, we shoot about 100 free throws apiece,” Socastee guard Travis Frye said after his team recently connected on 9-of-12 attempts from the line in a victory over North Myrtle Beach. “If we don’t make three-fourths of them, we run.”

CBCA weekly honors

The Coastal Basketball Coaches Association’s weekly Fabulous Five list includes Deondre Bromell (Carvers Bay), J.C. Cavin (St. James), Jaquan Grissett (North Myrtle Beach), Tramond Wilson (Myrtle Beach) and Harold Langley (Andrews).

The CBCA also made some adjustments to its area top 10, with Carolina Forest taking over the top spot.