Hickory High

It was doubleheader night at Hickory High School as both the girls and boys hosted Norfolk Academy. The girls game was a very competitive game that Hickory looked like they had control of going into the fourth quarter. But Norfolk Academy got the momentum and dominated the fourth quarter to win.

The Hickory boys took a 20 point lead to halftime and looked to be in complete control of their game. But Norfolk Academy fought back in the second half and even took a 1 point lead with a couple of minutes to go before Hickory finally got control of the game and won.

It was doubleheader night at Currituck County High School as both the girls and boys took on Hickory High School. The gym lighting had not been updated to LEDs so it was a bit of a throwback to the past. Both games were very competitive, which makes for better opportunities for shooting.

I brought my new telescopic stool but noticed that some of the pegs on it were already broke. It still worked mostly so my back was thankful. I brought my Nikon Z9 body and Nikkor Z 70-200 f/2.8 S lens. I hadn’t used this lens for basketball in a while, so I wanted to use it here. It’s the standard go to lens for basketball, but I think I still prefer a prime lens.

The Hickory Hawks hosted their city rival Grassfield on Friday night. Great night for football as I had to put on the hat and thin gloves.

Hickory isn’t the best place to shoot football at night. The combination of outdated lighting and black jerseys make for some high ISOs in the images. Luckily, software has come a long way in the last ten years and the noise cleans up well.

Thanks to Hurricane Helene’s tracking, and the upcoming rains we were expecting on Friday, we had a football game on Thursday night. It was Military Appreciation night as the Hickory Hawks hosted their rival, the Great Bridge Wilcats.

The combination of high school stadium lighting, dark open spaces between the two sides of the stadium, and Hickory’s all black jerseys, make for a difficult night of shooting. It gets so dark out there. Even shooting wide open at f/2.8 on the 400mm lens, my ISOs were reaching my peak settings. Lets hope these schools can switch out to LED lights in the near future.