SCHS to go for it all Saturday against talented Wolves
Senior back Justin Smith (above) is the leading rusher and scorer for South Columbus as it will carry a 15-0 record into Saturday’s state 2A championship football game with Lincolnton. Motorists on U.S. 701 who pass South Columbus High School this week get well informed of the Stallion excitement as revealed on the school’s marquee sign.
Joey Price
SCHS veteran head coach
Justin Duncan
SCHS quarterback
Stallion Spirit
Jonathan Buffkin
SCHS linebacker
By DAN BISER
Sports Editor
Having claimed their first-ever Eastern N.C. 2A football championship with four straight playoff victories on their homefield, the undefeated South Columbus Stallions will board a chartered bus Saturday morning and make the trek to Raleigh where they will meet Lincolnton in the state championship game at North Carolina State University’s Carter-Finley Stadium.
Kick-off is set for 3:30 p.m.
Advance tickets are on sale through Friday at South Columbus for $9 each. Tickets at the gate will be $10. Children of ages 5-and-under will be admitted free.
“It’s been nice having the homefield advantage through the East championship round, but now the big opportunity is there for us to go up to Raleigh and go after the state championship,” said veteran SCHS head coach Joey Price. “While it should be a great experience for our players and fans, we’re still trying to keep things as normal as possible in preparing for this game.”
South Columbus has rolled to its best season in the school’s 16-year history as it will take a 15-0 record to Raleigh following last Friday’s 8-3 win over Jacksonville Northside for the Eastern championship.
Lincolnton has an 11-4 record, including wins in its last 10 games. Coach Scott Cloninger’s Wolves knocked off neighboring East Lincoln 21-13 in last Friday’s Western N.C. 2A title game.
“Lincolnton is a very strong team and we have to be as ready for this game as we have all our games this season,” Price said.
“There’s no question that there are a lot more distractions this week because this is something that has never happened at South Columbus before, but we still want to keep our main focus on winning the football game.”
Both South Columbus and Lincolnton are led by a strong groups of senior players.
Lincolnton will be the in the state title game for the second time in three seasons. In 2005, the Wolves lost to Clinton 13-6 in the 2A final at Chapel Hill. Several of this year’s seniors, including standout back C.J. Wilson, played major roles as sophomores on that state finalist team that finished with a 14-1 record. Lincolnton won the state 2A championship in 1993 and finished runnerup in 1994.
Lincolnton, which won the Southern Piedmont Conference this fall, will be the home team on the scoreboard Saturday, and that means that South Columbus will not be playing in the black jerseys they have worn through the first four rounds of the playoffs.
However, in all five of their road games this year, the Stallions did not yielded a point while wearing their white jerseys. SCHS has gave up a total of only 66 points in its 10 home games this season.
Defense has been the major force in the Stallions’ quest of the state title as they have recorded eight shutouts and allowed more than one touchdown only three times this season. In last week’s win, the Stallions held Northside’s high-powered offense to a single field goal, even though the SCHS offense committed four turnovers.
“Our defense has remained solid all season,” Coach Price said. “There have been some nights when we’ve had trouble getting untracked on offense, but the defense has been there to get us through the rough spots.
“Northside did not have a turnover last week,” Price said. “I thought we did a really good job or controlling their offense and we kept them out of good field position most of the game.”
Seniors Andrae Jacobs, T.J. Richardson, Dakota Piver, Donovan Watts and Lee Hemingway are leaders in the Stallion defense that has allowed 24 points in four playoff games.
The South Columbus offense is led by senior fullback Justin Smith, who has rushed for more than 1,400 yards and 22 touchdowns. Junior Rashawn Grate, who suffered a hip injury against Northside, has rushed for over 1,000 yards and 13 touchdowns.
Junior quarterback Justin Duncan, who has become the most prolific passer in SCHS history this fall, has passed for almost 1,600 yards and 19 touchdowns. Piver, who signed last week to play college baseball at UNC-Wilmington, is the leading Stallion receiver with 29 catches for 612 yards and eight touchdowns.
South Columbus won the Waccamaw Conference championship for the ninth time in 12 seasons this fall.
Coach Cloninger said that from what he has seen on film, the South Columbus will probably give his Wolf squad its toughest test of the season, especially when speaking in terms of the Stallion defense.
Cloninger said that the 6-foot-1, 220 pound Jacobs “is as good a linebacker as I’ve ever seen. He really looks impressive with his side, speed and intensity. If the colleges aren’t all over him, they need to be.”
Cloninger said that his team played a demanding non-conference schedule, including Shelby (which will play Reidsville in Saturday’s 2AA state title game) and North Gaston (which will Western Alamance in the 3A state title game) as the Wolves lost four straight games after opening with a win.
“We went 5-7 last year, never really meshed, and then we opened this season at 1-4,” Cloninger said. “We tried to be patient because we felt after getting batted around by teams like Shelby and North Gaston a little bit that we had a pretty good shot at doing well in our conference and then maybe get a chance at going a ways in the playoffs.”
Cloninger is in his eighth season as Lincolnton head coach. He is only the third Wolf head coach since 1959 and has served on the Lincolnton coaching staff for almost 30 years. He played at Lincolnton High and went on to play college football at Western Carolina in the late 1970s.
Cloninger said that Wilson is definitely a major key for Lincolnton as a running back, pass receiver, kick returner and defensive back
“If he doesn’t touch the ball between 20 and 30 times a game, then it’s my fault,” Cloninger said. “We rely on him to do a lot of things, and he has really come through with some big efforts in the playoffs.”
Wilson has rushed for more than 1,400 yards and Wolf quarterback Adam Thompson has passed for more than 1,000 yards.
The Wolves also have a pair of senior tight end/linebackers - Demery Brewer and Dominique Pugh - who are leading pass receivers and defenders. Octavius Reid starts at linebacker and in the offensive line.
Price and Cloninger were on hand at Carter-Finley Stadium’s Vaughn Towers Monday for a press conference involving all 16 head coaches who will be competing for state championships this Saturday at Carter-Finley, UNC-Chapel Hill’s Kenan Stadium and Wake Forest’s University’s BB&T Stadium in Winston-Salem.
Saturday’s schedule at Carter Finley will begin at 11 a.m. with Plymouth going against North Duplin in the 1A championship game.
South Columbus and Lincolnton will be at 3:30 in the 2A final followed by Reidsville against defending state champion Shelby in the 2AA final.
Western Alamance and North Gaston will square off in the 3A final at 11 a.m., at Kenan Stadium, followed by the 3AA championship between Greensboro Dudley and Charlotte Catholic at 3:30 p.m. At 7:30, James Kenan will tangle with West Montgomery in the 1AA final.
Wilmington Hoggard and Winston-Salem Mt. Tabor will clash in the 4A championship game at 3 p.m., at BB&T, Stadium and New Bern will go against seven-time defending state champion Charlotte Independence in the 4AA title game at 7:30
Along with a state championship, the SCHS football squad will be out to give Price his 120th career victory in his 11th season as Stallion head coach.
The closest Price’s South Columbus team had previously come to the state title game was in 2002 when the Stallions went 13-0 and lost by a 13-0 score to Clinton in the Eastern N.C. 2A championship game. Both Clinton scores came in the game’s final minutes.
Price’s Stallions advanced to third-round play in 1997, 1999, 2003 and 2005. They advanced to the second round in 1998 and 2000.
In reaching the state finals, South Columbus eliminated three teams that had previously knocked them from state playoff contention at least twice each.
The Stallions opened the 2007 playoffs with a 33-7 win over Clinton. Clinton had topped the Stallions in the 1996, 1997 and 2002 playoffs.
In the third round, South Columbus defeated defending state 2A champion Burlington Cummings 39-14. Cummings had defeated SCHS in the 1995 and 2003 playoffs.
In the Eastern championship game, South Columbus defeated Jacksonville Northside 8-3. It was Northside that had knocked the Stallions from the playoffs in each of the past two seasons.
Carter-Finley Stadium has been the home of the North Carolina State University football team since the 1966 season.
Extensive renovations, completed in 2006, have made Carter-Finley one of the most state-of-the-art college football venues in the country. It stands alongside the RBC Center, home of the N.C. State basketball and the National Hockey League’s Carolina Hurricanes.
The stadium’s seating capacity now stands at 60,000.
See starting line-ups, records on 4B of our printed edition.