By DAN BISER

It will be Homecoming night Friday for Whiteville High School and the Wolfpack football team will be taking on a familiar Homecoming opponent.

Whiteville, coming off a 40-6 blitzing of Pender last Friday to put its conference record at 2-0, will be entertaining a South Brunswick Cougar team that is carrying its best mid-season record in 20 years. Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m.

Whiteville is 5-2 for the season while South Brunswick is 5-1. Both teams lost to West Brunswick – Whiteville by a 14-7 score and South Brunswick by an 18-0 count.

South Brunswick, under second-year head coach Gordon Walters, has claimed two of its wins over teams (North Raleigh Christian and Fayetteville Christian) that are playing 11-man football for the first time this season.

The Cougars posted 14 points in the final minutes last Friday to pull away to a 35-20 win over Trask in their conference opener.

Whiteville will be seeking its 21st win in 26 meetings with South Brunswick. The Wolfpack has won the last five meetings, but the past two have been real tussles as they topped the Cougars 21-14 in 2004 and 14-7 last fall with both those games played on SBHS field.

The last time the two teams met in Whiteville was in 2003 with Whiteville cruising to a 47-7 win.

Friday will mark the eighth time since 1983 that the Wolfpack has hosted the Cougars in its Homecoming battle. Whiteville holds a 6-1 advantage in those games with SBHS pulling out a 14-13 victory in 1996.

Coach Mark Little’s Wolfpack gave an impressive performance last week at Pender, particularly with its defense and specialty team play.

Junior back David Mosley returned a kickoff 77 yards for the Wolfpack’s first touchdown, and senior linebacker Kevin Gamble returned a partially blocked punt 22 yards for another score. The WHS defense got a big showing by back Quan Gaddy as the Wolfpack ran to a 27-6 halftime lead.

In last year’s win at South Brunswick, Wolfpack quarterback Harrison Jordan threw two touchdown first half touchdown passes. The second half was scoreless.

Coach Little said that South Brunswick has shown a lot of diversity on offense and a rugged defense.

“They do a good job of passing the football,” Little said. “They have a lot of discipline and are well coached. “They had a couple of rough spots against Trask, but they stepped up big when the game was on the line.”

The Whiteville offense is paced by junior running backs Jarrod McKinney and Tyson Wilcox.