Classic battle of unbeatens at SCHS
Stallions, Monarchs to clash for East 2A title
Stallion Pride - 2007
Staff photo by Mark Gilchrist
By DAN BISER
Sports Editor
It’s what high-school sports are all about.
A monumental “gut-check.”
Four months of blood, sweat, wind sprints, fatigue and relishing the taste of dirt ... and now the time has come to really lay it on the line.
Being tagged a winner isn’t quite enough when so much more lies at stake.
It’s football. It’s the playoffs. It’s a run for a championship.
For both the South Columbus Stallions and the Northside Monarchs, absolutely nothing has disrupted their respective football seasons this fall, and they are now the only forces standing in the way of each other.
Northside will make the trek from Jacksonville Friday night to take on South Columbus at 7:30 at Civitan Stadium for the Eastern N.C. 2A football championship and right to advance to the state 2A championship game on Dec. 8 at N.C. State University’s Carter-Finley Stadium.
It is a match-up that has been expected since the regular season was barely half-over. Both teams have 14-0 season records with South Columbus holding the top seed in the East 2A playoff bracket and Northside holding the No. 2 seed.
Aside from the broad fact that it is a regional championship game, both teams should have plenty of extra incentive coming into the contest.
For Joey Price’s South Columbus team, it will be a chance to atone for their playoff losses of the last two seasons.
Last fall, the Stallions were edged by the Monarchs 14-13 in the first round at Jacksonville after holding a 13-0 halftime lead. In 2005, the Stallions dropped a 10-0 third-round home game to the Monarchs.
The Northside squad of Coach Bob Eason will make its third straight trip to the Eastern finals and is still looking for its first trip to the state finals. The Monarchs were knocked off by Clinton in each of the last two regional title games.
Price said that Northside is a team with a lot of strength and experience.
“They don’t make mistakes and they play hard,” Price said. “This is the third straight year that we’ll have lined up against their starting quarterback (Joe Womack) and he’s going to the Shrine Bowl as a defensive back. He’s just one of a lot of really good athletes they have on their team.”
Northside basically had to win the East Central Conference twice this season as it beat ECC rival East Duplin 26-7 last week in third-round play and took a 26-7 win over ECC rival Southwest Onslow in the third round.
“The East Central Conference has been one of the toughest 2A conferences in the state for years, so for them to beat Southwest Onslow and East Duplin twice in the same season tells you just how good they are.”
South Columbus took a 39-14 third-round win over the defending state champion Cummings Cavaliers. The Stallions trailed at halftime for this first time this season by a 14-13 score, but they took control with a 19-point third quarter.
SCHS shut out Bunn 36-0 in the second round and defeated 2005 state champion Clinton 33-7 in the opening round. The Stallions will play their fourth straight home game in the playoffs.
“Our defense got off to kind of a slow start against Cummings, mainly because they operate out of so many spread formations,” Price said. “They hit on some good passes in the first quarter, but we settled down into some of the things they were doing as the game wore on.”
Price, whose Stallions are carrying the best football record in school history, said that Northside will not present as many offensive looks as Cummings, but that the Monarch offense should be much more effective than what the Stallions have seen in the first three rounds of the playoffs.
“They are a ball-control team and they have several kids who can bust big plays for them,” Price said. “They probably have more overall speed than any team we’ve gone against this year.”
Northside running back Tyler Witter had a big night last week against East Duplin, rushing for 185 yards, including touchdown runs of 77 and seven yards. Donte Moss, a 6-foot-4, 235-pound junior, added 93 yards rushing. The Monarchs attempted only four passes last week, completing two for 11 yards.
Among the big challenges for the Stallions will be finding ways to make big defensive stops early as well as trying to control the Monarchs’ ability to create time-consuming offensive possessions.
South Columbus has utilized its passing game in a big way in the playoffs as junior quarterback Justin Duncan has thrown for nine touchdowns and more than 500 yards in the three games. Senior flanker Dakota Piver has made four TD catches in the playoffs.
Senior fullbacks Justin Smith, Andrae Jacobs and Buster James, and junior running back Rashawn Grate and Dominique Betts all had big outings in last Friday’s victory over Cummings.
South Columbus has outscored its opponents by a combined 581-63, and Northside by a combined 488-132.
The teams’ only common opponent has been Clinton. Northside shut out the Dark Horses 41-0 in East Central Conference play, and South Columbus notched its 33-7 first-round win over the Clinton team.
This will be the second time in six years that South Columbus has advanced to the East 2A title game. In 2002, the Stallions played host to Clinton with both teams carrying a 13-0 record. Clinton won 13-0, getting both its touchdowns late in the final quarter.
The Stallions also lost to Clinton in the 1996 East 2A championship match-up at Clinton.
The winner of the South Columbus-Northside game will be the first East 2A team other than Southwest Onslow or Clinton to advance to the state 2A championship game since 1998.
Friday’s winner will take on the West N.C. 2A champion, either Lincolnton or West Lincoln, in the state title game set for 3:30 p.m., on Dec. 8, at Carter-Finley.
The last team from Columbus County that won an East regional football championship was the 1987 Whiteville Wolfpack when it shut out Ayden-Grifton 28-0 for the East 2A title. The Wolfpack topped Thomasville 14-12 in the state championship game the following week.
In 1986, Tabor City High (the predecessor to South Columbus) defeated Perquimans 28-9 for the East 1A football championship before losing to a powerhouse Murphy team 27-3 in the state title game a week later.
Tabor City also won East 2A championships in 1973 and 1978.