The Providence Day girls’ basketball team isn’t used to losing anywhere they play, especially on their home court.

But that’s what happened Monday night to the four-time defending N.C. Independent Schools Athletic Association 3A champion Chargers, as Northwood Academy pulled out a tight game 57-52 in the Second Martin Luther King Showcase.

After Providence Day (17-3) imposed its deliberate pace for most of the first half, using an 11-0 run to go ahead 23-19 at the half, Northwood Academy turned up the heat.

Northwood Academy’s pressure had a cumulative effect, forcing 20 Providence Day turnovers, helping the visitors to 38 second-half points.

“Obviously, their strengths and our strengths are in different places. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out,” said Providence Day coach Josh Springer, referring to his team’s advantage in the post and Northwood’s perimeter strength. “Any time we have 20 turnovers and give up nearly 40 points in a half, we’re not going to win many games.

“They sped us up and forced us into mistakes. They are a really good team.”

Senior center Jatarie White (committed to South Carolina) led Providence Day with 31 points and 15 rebounds, but Northwood Academy senior

Article source: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/01/20/4627353/northwood-academy-sets-pace-in.html If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

Real Deals

Flip, shop and save on specials from your favorite retailers in Asheville, NC 28802

GET DEALS NOW

Article source: http://www.citizen-times.com/usatoday/article/4661587 If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

BEIJING — On their last morning in Pyongyang, father and daughter Hakan and Sophia Sokmensuer kept counting down the hours — until they were out safely.

The U.S. tourists had relished their visit to North Korea’s time-warp capital, where the Cold War isn’t over, and enjoyed Dennis Rodman’s controversial, high-profile basketball game there Jan. 8.

But fear rises fast inside the isolated, highly repressive state, where an elderly American visitor was taken from his airplane seat last October, then detained for a month. Squeezed onto the tarmac bus at Pyongyang airport, the Sokmensuers saw an official run out from the terminal, arms waving. “The doors opened and he pointed towards me,” recalls Hakan.

The problem? The passenger beside him had not returned his hotel key. After multiple apologies for leaving it in his room, the official relented and let the bus go.

“I gulped because I knew I had four room keys in my pocket,” says Sokmensuer, 55, a retired executive from Sarasota, Fla. “It was fortunately the only mini-heart attack of the journey.”

A trip to North Korea is not for the fainthearted, yet a small but rising number of intrepid Americans choose to spend their dollars and vacations visiting, and revisiting, a country

Article source: http://www.citizen-times.com/usatoday/article/4655879 If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

“What and where?” I quickly responded as the folks on the walk looked incredulously at the expression on my face.

“I will meet you at the Ingles in Mills River in 45 minutes.”

“The bird walk is over,” I told the group with a grin on my face, “and we are heading to Brevard to see the owl. Who’s coming?”

This was our monthly Beaver Lake Bird Walk in North Asheville, where about 20 folks turned out for our regular first Saturday of the month December walk. It’s never a really exciting time of the year, as all of our summer birds have long gone, and it’s only during inclement weather when Beaver Lake attracts a small selection of transient waterfowl. We were happy watching the regular gang of tufted titmice and golden-crowned kinglets when the phone call came in.

Snowy owls are large white owls that breed in the Arctic tundra regions with a circumpolar distribution. In North America they nest from Alaska to Northern Labrador and winter south of this range still far to the north of the Carolinas. Periodically they undergo an irruptive migration well to the south of their normal wintering range. In 2011 they staged a major push into

Article source: http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20140119/ARTICLES/401191003 If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com