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The climax to a great run by Patton baseball

By Roy Waters | The News Herald

Published: June 9, 2009

When our Morganton All-Stars made it to the Little League World Series in 2004, I wrote a column asking everyone not to put unrealistic expectations on these 11 and 12 year olds in the future.
At that time, such an expectation would have been for them to play for the North Carolina state championship in their junior year of high school. What seemed to me and others as unrealistic, turned out to be very much within the grasp of this exceptional group of young men.
On behalf of the entire community, I would like to express our hearty congratulations to the Patton High Panthers, their coaches, parents and everyone connected with their baseball team. They played their hearts out and finished runners up to McMichael High School of Mayodan for the state 2A crown this past weekend in Raleigh.
Leading 3-1 in the second inning Saturday and the bases loaded, a a key hit for the Panthers may have turned the whole series around. With three beautiful double plays, the locals held that lead until the fifth when the big bats of their opponents came alive again as they had in Game 1. McMichael was one of the strongest hitting high school teams I've ever seen. Many of their outs were long, hard-hit balls to the outfield.
A large number of Patton supporters made the trip to the North Carolina State University baseball park to take in the series. With their team losing only two key players to graduation, many feel like it may not be their last trip there.
Hard-throwing Trevor Tallent saw only limited time on the mound in the playoffs due to injuries that his father said would require medical attention right away.
In Game 1 on Friday, Patton faced one of the better high school pitchers in the state and scored six runs off Joseph Hughes, a future East Carolina University Pirate.
Fond Memories
It's always special to visit the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area. It brings back a lot of good memories from the time I spent there.
I saw my first great basketball player there in the 1950-51 season. His name was Dick Groat and he played for Duke University. I didn't quite realize at the time what set him apart but it was his jump shot. He was one of the first proponents of the new shot on the East Coast.
The first large, on-campus coliseum in the south was Reynolds Coliseum on the N.C. State campus. N.C. State brought in many Indiana players and big-time basketball to our area for the first time in the 1940s.
There are wonderful museums in the area and Durham has turned some of the old cigarette factories into neat shops and restaurants.
Be sure to check out the football and basketball museums at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and you'll see the most beautiful football stadium in our country.

Roy Waters is a sports columnist for The News Herald. Waters was baseball and basketball coach at Salem High School from 1955-66, where his teams won 18 championships. In 2007, he was inducted into the Burke County Sports Hall of Fame.