Prep notebook: Leesville’s Mareno to run in Foot Locker Nationals

Leesville Road junior Nevada Mareno will compete in the Foot Locker Cross Country Nationals after she placed second at the South Regionals on Nov. 28.

The national competition is Saturday in San Diego. The top 10 runners in four regionals will compete against one another.

500 wins: Northern Nash girls basketball coach Grover Battle won his 500th game last month. His career record is now 500-176.

Cheerleading titles: Cardinal Gibbons captured the Carolina Cup in the 13th annual N.C. High School Athletic Association state invitational cheerleading championships on Saturday.

Gibbons recorded 87.4 points in the medium varsity competition, which was the highest score of the entire event. Gibbons also won the Cup in 2007 and 2011.

Heritage won the Division I small varsity title and N.C. School of Science and Math won the Division II non-tumble category.

Adams switches to Oklahoma: Hillside running back Abdul Adams is now committed to Oklahoma. The senior made the switch last month. He had previously been committed to a different team in the College Football Playoff – Michigan State.

TV basketball: Two area varsity basketball doubleheaders are among those slated to be televised live by Time Warner Cable SportsChannel this year – Apex at Panther Creek on Dec. 17 and Cardinal Gibbons at Chapel Hill on Jan. 13.

This is the first year the N.C. High School Athletic Association has allowed live television broadcasts, and TWC has the exclusive rights for select games. The home teams do get a small cut of the money, $350.

NCHSAA doesn’t bring up conferences: At the winter board of directors meeting last week, NCHSAA commissioner Que Tucker said the board did not bring up a rule addressing the Cap-8 and Southwest Wake’s conference bylaws that prohibited all games against non-public schools. Tucker said that because the bylaw was later repealed by both leagues, there was not a need to pass a new rule.

Tucker added that she knows some schools agree not to play one another, but putting it in writing made the situation one the board may have looked at had it not been repealed.

Lacrosse switch: Rolesville’s first girls lacrosse team as been moved from Conference 3, where it was originally listed with teams from the Southwest Wake Athletic Conference, to Conference 4 with Cap-8 teams for the spring.

Ravenscroft basketball: The Ravenscroft boys and girls basketball teams got a look at arguably the best programs in the state. The girls lost 46-29 to Charlotte’s Providence Day, the six-time defending NCISAA 3A champions. The Ravens’ boys team led at halftime against a Providence Day team considered to be the state’s best this year before losing 74-57.

Wrestling tournaments: Orange hosted and won the Jim King Invitational wrestling tournament on Saturday, with Southern Alamance coming in second and Cary third. The Panthers, which had not won their own tournament since 2011, had no individual champions but had three runners-up to total 223.5 points.

Cary had three champions – Kollin Wade, Enrique Zuniga and Rod Perry – and scored 196.5 points. Clayton was fifth with 123.

Holly Springs, ranked No. 1 in The News & Observer’s area dual-team top 15, won the 24th annual Pierce-Davis Memorial tournament at North Pitt. The Golden Hawks had 183.5 points, well clear of runner-up Washington’s 138.

Apex won the Green Hope Grapple with the host Falcons coming up just short in second place, 155-149.

Shytle in All-American game: Heritage’s Logan Shytle came off the bench in the East team’s 2-1 victory against the West in the High School All-American boys soccer game on Saturday at Cardinal Gibbons.

This story was originally published December 7, 2015 at 2:04 PM with the headline "Prep notebook: Leesville’s Mareno to run in Foot Locker Nationals."