High School football Saturday morning rewind

There were some upsets last night and that dropped our record to 6-4 for the week and if you look close we only have four games involving Guilford County teams coming up next week.

We have five county teams left in the hunt and the run down for Friday November 16 goes, #8 Grimsley at #1 West Charlotte, #7 Dudley at #2 Northeast Guilford, #5 Southern Guilford at #4 St. Pauls, and #12 Western Guilford at #4 Eastern Randolph.

Last night I was at the Southern Guilford-Eastern Guilford showdown and I called this one at 28-17 and it ended up 27-15 with the SG Storm out in front. SG goes to (9-3) with the victory and EG closes at (5-7). Jason Gaertner of the News and Record commented in his write-up about how eerily close this week’s score was to the Friday Nov. 2 final.(28-14)

Southern had strong running from Scotty Wayne, who picked up 101 yards alone on two of his touchdown carries. Wayne finished with 124 yards on just 5 carries but on what could be his final carry of the season he was ejected for over-celebration as he kicked up his heels with a bit of a dance as he entered the west end zone. Since Wayne got tossed he will have to sit out next week’s game at St. Pauls unless the Storm can come up with one heck of an appeal. William Graves ran for 86 yards and QB Antonio Martin had a touchdown run from a yard out and he threw a 24 yard TD pass to Dwayne Knight.

Darren Garcia, Cameron Allred, Darrius Bogans, Kencie Brewer, and Chris Couch all played well for the Storm on defense. Gerrod Herbin was outstanding for Eastern Guilford on offense with 184 yards on 18 carries and the EG Wildcat QB Jason Davis is one tough character. He got hurt early in the first quarter but he played on and he is fun to watch. Davis is going to be a good one, he’s only a junior, and he has the qualities you look for in a true team leader.

Western Guilford pulled off the biggest positive suprise of the night with their 49-46 upset win at Harnett Central. WG was a #12 seed and they knocked off a #5. Western and coach Chris Causey had plenty of offense with with runningback Brandon Easter going for 206 yards on 32 carries and he had 6 touchdowns, while QB Corey McKenna threw for 254 yards. Western is going to need it again next week at ER.

The biggest upset loss was Ragsdale falling to WS Parkland 28-24 in Jamestown. There’s not much you can say, the Tigers grabbed a lead late going up 24-21, after trailing most of the game, but the Mustangs prevail as Ragsdale couldn’t hold them off and Parkland takes it 28-24 and the Tigers close out at (9-3). Southeast Guilford was another team that had a late lead, up 10-7 at the half, and still up 10-7 as they went to the 4th quarter against Triton but the Falcons fall 20-10 getting out scored 13-0 in the fourth quarter. SEG finishes at (7-5) and I hate this ending the most for the Venable family and Justin’s dad and grandfather. I wish for the Venables a good road to East Carolina.

High Point Central found the going very rough at Mount Tabor where the Spartans defeated the Black Bison 35-7 and it was a fitting way for the HPC QB, Ricky Mitchell, to go out scoring the only Bison TD. High Point Andrews had an upset left in them but it didn’t want to come out last night as West Iredell ended the Red Raiders season with an easy 29-12 win over HPA.

There were no shockwaves flowing through Marion Kirby Stadium last evening as Charlotte Independence came in and pounded the Page Pirates with the Patriots pulling away with a 54-7 final score on the board. You can’t say a lot when look up and see Independence up 33-0 after only one quarter and Page was down 54-0 before they could get into the end zone. Page won the Metro and coach Tom Knotts will be back with his Patriots of Independence on Monday.

Grimsley had to hang on for dear life at Jamieson Staduim as they watched the hopefuls from Huntersville Hopewell put together a mass exodus after falling behind 41-21. Hopewell made the final close at 41-35 and Paul Lambeth will have more on this one later today.

Dudley and Northeast Guilford followed the game-plan and kept everthing in order for next week’s rematch at Bill Bookout Stadium in McLeansville. NEG won the first meeting at Dudley 14-13, but Dudley took both games from NEG last year, regular season and then again in round one of the playoffs at Dudley.

Northeast looked up and saw themselves tied up at 21-21 with Eastern Wayne at the half but when they went back out to start the second half after coach Tommy Pursley’s hafltime talk it was all Rams. Tyler Woods was the workhorse with 227 yards and 3 TD’s on 30 carries and Kendall Bratcher chipped in with 2 touchdown runs. The Ram defense completely shut down EW in the second half. NEG knows they will have to have a better defensive start against Dudley next Friday night. Woods better rest up, he will carrying the mail all next week.

Dudley ran out to a 28-3 lead at the half and never looked back at home in Tarpley Stadium with Currituck County in town for round one of the state 3-AA East playoffs and all the festivities that go with it at Dudley. The Panthers won out 34-10 and their defense rose to the occasion once again. Dudley’s “D” pretty much shut down CC all night long. Dudley used to have the Blacknall brothers(Derek and Cedric) and now they are going to the Overby brothers(Fred and Rakeem) on offense with Fred scoring 2 TD’s and Rakeem adding another. Dudley is now (9-3) and has plenty of backs to choose from with Fred Overby, Kyree Ward, and Joseph Jackson.

Northeast is (10-2) and with Dudley headed up to NEG next Friday night we should be in for another Guilford County Classic.