Rams to open playoffs tonight

The Havelock boys and girls basketball teams will be hitting the road for the first round of the state 3A playoffs tonight.

The Havelock boys, the 10th-seed in the East Region, will travel to seventh-seed Nash Central (14-6).

The winner will face either Rocky Mount (21-3) or Eastern Wayne (9-15) on Wednesday.

“I’m a little disappointed that we didn’t get a home game, but I’m looking forward to it,” Havelock coach Bill Fryczynski said. “We are certainly not going to go there, just to show up and say we are in the playoffs. We are going over there to win.”

The Rams (13-10) missed the playoffs last season.

Led by senior Tyquan Nolan and junior Zack Bruns, Havelock had its highest seed in the Coastal Conference tournament in Fryczynski’s 12 years. The Rams, the third-place team in the conference, lost to South Central in the conference tournament semifinals on Wednesday.

“If you ask the two seniors, they don’t want things to end,” Fryczynski. “They want to keep going. There is an energy and a chemistry on this team that we didn’t have last year.”

The Havelock girls, by virtue of beating D.H. Conley in a tiebreaker game on Friday, wrapped up third place in the Coastal 3A Conference.

The 11th-seeded Rams (17-8) will travel to Northern Nash (19-3) on Monday.

The victor will advance to play either C.B. Aycock (16-6) or D.H. Conley (14-11).