CHAPEL HILL— Abigale Verchick of Union Pines High School in Cameron and Joe Mason of West Carteret High School are the winners of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association Performance of the Week awards, powered by Time Warner Cable SportsChannel with Subway® Restaurants.
 
           Each week one male and one female athlete in NCHSAA competition are selected for this award from nominations received from media and school administrators.
 
             Verchick is a senior who is a two-sport standout at Union Pines, and she had great weeks in both sports.  She competed in the Cape Fear Valley Conference track and field championships in Fayetteville and helped lead her team to its fourth consecutive conference crown. Verchick won both the 1600 and 3200 meter runs in dominating fashion, finishing the 1600 in 5:37 and beating the field by 30 seconds, and then taking the 3200 by better than two minutes.  She also ran a leg on the four by 800 meter relay team that finished second and finished second in the 800 herself.
 
            To top off her week, the Union Pines soccer team stayed undefeated with a pair of victories and clinched the regular-season conference championship for the fourth straight year.  Verchick, the conference’s Defender of the Year last year, helped her team capture a couple of shutout victories.
 
            Mason, an excellent baseball player for West Carteret, is having a great year and led a couple of improbable comebacks for key victories.  The Patriots trailed 11-1, three outs away from a mercy-rule loss to Jacksonville, before exploding for nine runs in the fifth and wound up taking a 12-11 win.  He went two for three with a triple, RBI, three runs scored and a stolen base.
 
            Then the Patriots trailed Havelock 12-9 with two outs in the seventh before tallying five times to take a 14-12 win.  He had a double, RBI, three runs scored and a stolen base in that one.  He leads the team in most offensive categories, including batting average (.600), slugging (1.018), doubles, triples, home runs, walks, runs scored and steals (18 in 18 games). He will continue his career at Wingate University.
 
             TWC SportsChannel typically announces the winners of the awards during a SportsNight show and will recognize the winners throughout the week. Weekly recipients are also recognized via Twitter and Facebook.