Local Sports Roundup: Prep sports start next week

Mike Duprez

As high school sports get ready to begin play, let’s take another look at the new conference makeups, plus a review of the Asheboro ZooKeepers’ final week of summer play and some notes from the season.

General

■ The 2025-26 prep season begins on Monday, Aug. 11, with fall sports events. Because of the latest NCHSAA realignment, Randolph County schools are now split among four conferences.

There are now eight classifications, double the previous four.

Asheboro is a 6-A school in the Triad Area 5-A/6-A Conference with Eastern Guilford, Northern Guilford, Northeast Guilford, Southeast Guilford and Southern Guilford.

Randleman is a 4-A school in the Piedmont Triad 4-A/5-A Conference with Central Davidson, High Point Central, Ledford, Lexington, Montgomery Central at T.W. Andrews.

Southwestern Randolph (4-A), Eastern Randolph (3-A) and Uwharrie Charter (3-A) are in the Four Rivers 3-A/4-A Conference with Jordan-Matthews, North Moore and Northwood.

Trinity and Wheatmore are in the 3-A Central Carolina Conference with Providence Grove, East Davidson, Thomasville and West Davidson.

ZooKeepers Baseball

■ Jake Griffith and Seojun Oh both went 3-for-4 with two RBIs in the ZooKeepers’ 13-7 win over the Martinsville Mustangs. Rylen Stockton was 2-for-5 with two RBIs. Davis Germann was 1-for-5 with two RBIs. Sal Laimo and Jeremy Reyes both had two hits. David McGeorge got the win with 5 1/3 innings of relief, allowing no earned runs with five strikeouts.

■ Stockton was 2-for-5 with two dou-bles and four RBIs in the ZooKeepers’ 9-7 loss to Martinsville. Ryan Albin and Griffith both had two hits and an RBI.

n Germann blasted a three-run double in the first inning and the ZooKeepers held on for a 3-2 win over the High Point-Thomasville HiToms. Griffith was 2-for-3. Billy Rozakis pitched six innings, allowing four hits and two earned runs with five strikeouts. Caleb Cockerham went two scoreless innings and Mason Bell worked a scoreless ninth inning to earn a save.

■ Facing thin odds for a playoff spot, the ZooKeepers lost 7-6 to the Holly Springs after the Salamanders scored two in the bottom of the seventh to take the 7-6 lead and held on. Asheboro was up 4-1 and later 6-5 in the game. Oh was 2-for-4 with 3 RBIs, while Laimo and Albin went hitless but turned their combined 5 walks into a combined 5 runs scored. Griffith was also 2-for-4 in the game. McGeorge absorbed the loss in relief.

■ Laimo was 1-for-4 with a RBI in the ZooKeeers’ 3-2 loss to the Forest City Owls that brought to an end the ZooKeepers’ post-season chances. Germann and Oh each had a double. Hiroyuki Yamada gave up just one hit in seven innings but issued eight walks and allowed two runs. Nathanael Volk allowed a run in two innings.

■ Germann smashed a three-run homer in the ZooKeepers’ season-ending 11-5 loss to the High Point-Thomasville HiToms. Krisitian Amaro was 2-for-4 with an RBI. Rafael Soto was 1-for-4 with an RBI.

Final ZooKeepers notes

HITTING — Seojun Oh finished the year tied with Chase Waddell of Wilson for the most RBIs in the CPL with 41 each. … Yariel Diaz finished ninth in batting average among CPL hitters at .344. Jake Griffith was 11th at .331 and Oh finished 19th at .311. … Oh was second in the league in at bats with 167, five out of first. … Oh was fourth in runs scored at 37 and Sal Laimo 9th with 33. … Oh’s 52 hits were 5th most; Diaz was 9th with 45. … Oh’s 35 walks were second in the league, two out of the lead. … Diaz was third in being hit by pitches (13 times). Laimo was tied for seventh at 11. …

PITCHING — Pitching statistics were much more up and down as only six pitchers threw as many as 40 innings. … Hiroyuki Yamada finished 6th in the league in ERA at 4.85; only three pitchers with enough innings to qualify were under 4.00. … No Asheboro pitcher had more than 2 wins and Yamada’s 30 strikeouts were tied for 29th in the league. … Mason McDaniel’s 3 saves tied for 10th in the CPL. He had a 1.25 ERA in six appearances covering 21.2 innings.

SCHEDULE — The ZooKeepers (24-24, two games out of the last playoff spot) held their own against the league’s better clubs. Their downfall was their production against some teams at or toward the bottom of the league, going 0-2 against Macon (17-27), 4-6 against High Point-Thomasville (18-29, meaning 6 of the HiToms’ 18 wins were against Asheboro), 4-5 against Martinsville (21-27) and 3-4 against Holly Springs (22-26). Against the rest of the league, the ZooKeepers were 13-7.

WHOA — Keep an eye on this guy, if you can: Kyle Edwards with Peninsula stole 41 bases and was caught only once. … Despite a 17-27 finish, Macon led the league in attendance by a long, long ways. Its 52,314 total (an average of 2,275 per game in 23 home outings) was nearly 17,000 more than the 35,714 that second-place Peninsula drew in 24 home games. Meanwhile, Asheboro was third from the bottom of the 15 teams with 10,658 total attendance over 24 home games, an average of 444 per game. For the summer, CPL teams drew a total of 337,104 fans to their games.

Brooks Brannon update

■ The former Randleman star is hitting .129 with a home run and four RBIs in 17 games for the Portland Sea Dogs, the Double-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. Prior to his promotion, Brannon hit .270 with 5 home runs and 31 RBIs for the Salem Red Sox.