TopCat Markets

15/11/2024

🚨 ⚠️ ⛔️ Notice to all the big rigs! ⛔️ ⚠️ 🚨

11/11/2024

🫡 🇺🇸

05/11/2024

Congratulations to Jackson County, NC’s own Cal Raleigh on his Golden Glove award! ⚾️

26/09/2024

🚨 Stores are open regular hours today for anything you may need. Things can change with ⚡️ power outages or water levels rising, but we’ll update that here if something changes. Be safe out there! ⚠️

11/09/2024

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02/09/2024

Happy Labor Day! 🍻 🇺🇸 🍔

23/08/2024

This Saturday, from 6-8 at Bridge Park in Sylva!

Saturday Night! Sylva, NC!!! Let’s GOOOO!!!

14/08/2024

Congratulations to Sylva’s newest big league player! Zebby Matthews got his first K, a few more Ks, and then his first big league win in his first start! ⚾️ 🏆

31/07/2024

Go Evy! Western NC is home to a bronze medalist! 🇺🇸 🏅 🎉 🍾 🥂 🇺🇸

13/07/2024

All stocked up on tees, hats, caps, coolers, and more at our flagship store in Sylva, NC! Stop in this weekend and check it out… 👕 🧢 🧊 🍺

12/07/2024

If you haven’t tried it yet, we’ve got a great food truck at the Exxon location on 441 in Sylva that’s open Monday-Saturday for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And starting this Sunday, we’ll have the Pickled Possum food truck every Sunday serving up burgers, dogs, and BBQ! 🍔 🌯 🌮 🍟 🌭 🥤

22/06/2024

The Official North Carolina Trout Capital tees back in stock next week!

16/06/2024

Happy Fathers Day!

14/06/2024

More new tees in stock soon…

03/06/2024

The 🌈 is leading you to the new food truck serving authentic Mexican food at the TopCat Exxon on 441 in Sylva… Drop by this week and try it out! 🌯 🌮

01/06/2024

Nice flashback article and photo to Tim’s high school days as a catcher on the state championship baseball team ⚾️ 🏆

History: 50 years ago, Jackson County baseball was as good as it got

By Jim Buchanan

It’s not a stretch to say that 50 years ago, Jackson County was ground zero for quality high school baseball in the state of North Carolina.

After all, there were two state championship finalists maybe five miles apart as the crow flies.

Sylva-Webster had cemented its status as a sports dynasty when 1974 rolled around. The football team hadn’t lost a game since 1971, the basketball team had reached the state quarterfinals and Golden Eagle athletes participated in both the state wrestling and track championships.

So it wasn’t a shock the baseball team was pretty good too. The team was built around the pitching of Kole Clapsaddle and freshman Steve Streater, strong hitting and opportunistic baserunning – entering the state quarterfinals the Golden Eagles had only hit into four double plays all season.

Helped by a team averaging more than eight runs a game, Clapsaddle went into the state finals with an 8-1 record, followed by Streater’s 7-2 mark. In the playoffs the team had a gaudy fielding percentage of .895. Alton Owen entered the semifinal game with a batting average of .535 and zero strikeouts, while speedsters Terry Smith and Jimmy Streater followed at .440 and .397.

The team had only three seniors - Smith, Tim Lewis and Mark Bradley.

The squad lost three regular season games, 2-1 decisions to Cherokee and Cullowhee and a conference tilt to a powerful Franklin squad. That loss was avenged in the Smoky Mountain Conference title game for the right to go to the state playoffs.

Clapsaddle and Owen told the Herald’s J.D. McRorie that Franklin was “the most outstanding team we’ve played this year.” Coach Babe Howell described the Franklin win as the game that cemented the squad.

Two of the losses were under the lights, an unfamiliar situation for a Sylva-Webster team that played on a field without lights.

“Franklin had a senior team, and an outstanding team,” Howell said. “They just beat us.”

Despite the quality of the baseball team, that sport was still taking a back seat to the football juggernaut. The Herald reported that in anticipation of the state title series here, a wire fence was installed around the field perimeter and that “tentative plans called for construction of dugouts.”

Title foe Hallsboro entered the best-of-three 2-A championship series with a 19-3 record against Sylva-Webster’s 16-3 mark.

The first date was rained out. Sylva-Webster took Game 1, 3-1, and Hallsboro knotted the series 1-1 with a 6-1 victory in Game 2, with both games played on a Friday due to the rainout. Hallsboro ace Willard Baldwin entered the series with a 17-1 record. He and Streater had pitched game 2 and met again in Game 3, with Sylva-Webster clinching its first state championship with an 8-3 victory. The Golden Eagles finished the year with a 19-4 mark, while Hallsboro was 20-4.

Up the road, Cullowhee’s Rebels also had reached the state title series (1-A) but dropped a pair of games to Manteo, 11-6 and 2-0.

The next year Jackson County again reigned as a baseball hotspot, but the roles were reversed, with Sylva-Webster finishing as the 2-A runner-up and Cullowhee bringing home the 1-A championship trophy.

PHOTO CAPTION: Sylva-Webster’s 1974 baseball squad claimed its first state 2-A baseball title. From left, back row: Coach Charles “Babe” Howell, Jimmy Streater, Alton Owen, Tim Lewis, Phillip Howell, Johnny Crawford, Gary Melton, assistant coach James “Pee Wee” Roper. Front: Kole Clapsaddle, Jimmy Robinson, Mark Bradley, Terry Smith, Ted Jamison, Steve Streater and Ronnie Black.

25/05/2024

🇺🇸 Stores open regular hours all weekend 🇺🇸

15/05/2024

If you’ve stopped by the Mobil store on 441 in Sylva any day since we first opened it in 2015, you were undoubtedly greeted at some point by Kevin’s big smile. We lost Kevin over the weekend from a medical issue, and we’re really going to miss him. And we know a lot of you will, too. His family will be hosting a memorial service on Sunday, May 19th from 12-3 at Innovation Brewing in Dillsboro for anyone that would like to attend. Please keep all his family and friends in your prayers