By DAN BISER

There will be few high school football games in eastern North Carolina this Friday night that will provide as much interest and luster when the South Columbus Stallions take the field against the Wallace-Rose Hill Bulldogs at Wallace.

Game time is 7:30

The most striking thing about the match-up is that it is not even a conference game. However, it is a contest that brings on two teams with several similarities – mainly pride, tradition and winning.

Jack Holley, the winningest coach in North Carolina high school football history, will put his 5-0 W-RH squad against the 4-1 Stallions of his former assistant coach Joey Price. Price, who won his 100th career game as SCHS head coach last week, served as under Holley for two seasons at South Columbus.

Price, now in his 10th season as Stallion head coach, gives much of the credit to Holley for the success that South Columbus has carried in football since the school opened in 1992.

“Jack laid the groundwork while he was here,” Price said. “He established the standard and we’ve just done what we could to keep it going.”

Holley has served for more than 40 years as head coach in eastern North Carolina. In each of the past two seasons, his Bulldog have suffered a one-point loss to Thomasville in the state 1-AA championship game.

Price, whose team thumped North Brunswick 35-7 last Friday at Leland in its Waccamaw 1A-2A Conference opener, hopes his squad is ready for the challenge of taking on the Bulldogs on their homefield.

“I hope we can keep it closer this time,” said Price, whose Stallions suffered a 34-0 loss last season when the two teams squared off at South Columbus.

“They took it to us last year,” Price said. “We kind of got our feelings hurt.”

Last year’s loss to the Bulldogs was the Stallions’ only regular-season setback. It also snapped the SCHS regular-season homefield winning streak of 45 straight games. Following the loss, the Stallions won seven straight games while clinching another Waccamaw Conference and Columbus County championship. They also advanced to the third round of the state 2A playoffs and finished with a 12-2 record.

Price said that Wallace-Rose Hill appears to be just as strong this season, especially after the Bulldogs walloped previously unbeaten East Carteret 42-7 last Friday.

“They’ve got a lot of their people back from last year but they have banged up some with injuries,” Price said. “Two of their top linebackers are out with torn ACLs.”

Among the returnees for the Bulldogs is quarterback Andrew Bowden, who had a big performance in last year’s win over the Stallions. Not only did Bowden pace the W-RH football team to the state title game last year, but he also was a key player on the Bulldogs’ 2006 state 1A champion basketball team.

“They’ve got a lot of athletes and all their players excel in the weight room,” Price said. “They are a difficult team to prepare for because they have so many strengths.”

Price came away pleased from the Stallions’ convincing win at North Brunswick.

“We brought things together better than we had all season,” Price said. “Our kids came to play and it showed up at North Brunswick. Hopefully things can start coming together even more for us over the rest of the season.

South Columbus suffered a 42-6 loss to unbeaten East Bladen on Sept. 8 and that came a week after the Stallions lost spark plug fullback Justin Smith to a severe ankle injury in a 14-0 win over Loris, S.C.

“We’ve had to change things around some, to move people around a little bit more,” Price said.

In the win over North Brunswick, Andrae Jacobs and James Vereen each ran for two touchdowns. The Stallions jumped to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter to take control early.

Holley came to Columbus County in 1963 as head coach at Tabor City High School. Holley coached for more than 20 years in Columbus County, including stints at Tabor City, Hallsboro and South Columbus. His son Battle serves as his offensive coordinator.

Prior to last year’s game at South Columbus, Holley was joined on the field by more than 100 of his former players and assistants.