Stallions to go for ninth straight win
against 6-1 South Brunswick squad
South Columbus High football coach Joey Price
By DAN BISER
Sports Editor
Carrying an 8-0 record for the first time since 2002, the South Columbus Stallions will try to build on their quest of regaining the Waccamaw Conference football championship and a high seeding in the upcoming state 2A playoffs when they travel to Boiling Spring Lakes Friday to take on the South Brunswick Cougars.
Gametime is 7:30.
Coach Joey Price’s Stallions, now leading the Waccamaw Conference race with a 3-0 record, will take on a South Brunswick team that suffered its first loss of the season last Friday -- a 36-35 heart-breaker to county rival North Brunswick at Leland. Coach Gordon Walters’ Cougars had the best football start in the school’s 36-year history when they won their first six games.
Friday will mark the 15th football meeting between the Stallions and the Cougars. South Columbus has won 14 of those games, including a 48-12 runaway last season. South Brunswick’s only win in the rivalry series came in 1995 by a 12-8 score.
South Columbus, which is ranked fourth among the state’s 2A teams (behind Reidsville, Shelby and Mount Pleasant), trailed an opponent for the first time last week when the Pender Patriots invaded the Stallions’ 2007 Homecoming and jumped to a 14-0 first quarter lead.
South Columbus battled back behind an outstanding rushing effort by senior back Justin Smith as well as a defensive resurgence that held the Patriots in check over the final three quarters for a 42-14 victory.
Smith rushed for 208 yards and scored all three of the Stallions’ first-half touchdowns on runs of 45, 44 and 12 yards. A 55-yard return of a pass interception for a touchdown by free safety Lee Hemingway early in the second half gave the Stallions a 28-14 lead and plenty of momentum for the remainder of the game.
“Pender made it tough on us early last week,” said Price, who is now in his 11th season as Stallions head coach. “They came at us hard on defense and got outside on us with a couple of option pitches for touchdowns.
“We stayed patient and got things going our way in the second quarter,” Price said. “Pender has a fine football team and several very talented players. They had a lot of people going both ways and we were able to wear them down a little in the second half.”
Price and his staff know they will see a lot of power football when they take the field against South Brunswick Friday.
“They line up tight with two wings and run the ball right at you,” Price said. “That’s what they did the entire second half last year after we got a good lead on them, and they moved the football pretty well on us.
“We really have to gear ourselves to stop what they do with their running game,” the Stallion coach added.
The South Columbus defense gave up points in the first half for the first time last week. Hemingway, Andrae Jacobs, T.J. Richardson, Dakota Piver and Donovan Watts provide much of the defensive leadership. All are three-year starters.
“You can’t say enough for the senior leadership we have,” Price said. “That is definitely one of our strengths.”
Coach Walters, who built strong programs at Wilmington Laney and Southern Durham, has brought South Brunswick along steadily since being hired to coach the Cougars in 2005. Last fall, he coached SBHS to a 6-6 record and their first state playoff appearance since 1993.
After opening conference play with a 41-7 thumping of Trask, the Cougars gained their first victory over Whiteville in seven years in a 21-7 decision. They also beat West Brunswick for the first time in 19 games earlier in the season.
The Cougars rely on the running of Matt Miller and the quarterbacking of Ryan Morgan. They have turned in several solid performances on defense this fall, and have regularly played some sophomores and freshmen.
“They don’t do anything fancy and they don’t make a lot of mistakes,” Price said. “They play hard and battle you in the trenches. Fundamentally, it’s probably the best team they’ve had in a long time.”
South Columbus, which last fall failed to win the Waccamaw Conference championship for only the third time in 11 seasons, held an 8-0 record in the 2002 en route to a 13-1 finish. The Stallions lost to eventual state champion Clinton 13-0 in the Eastern N.C. 2A finals.
South Brunswick had its best-ever football season in 1986 when it won the Waccamaw Conference championship and advanced to the second round of the state 2A playoffs, finishing at 10-2. That team, coached by Glenn Sasser,
included a two-way back named Quinton McCracken. McCracken went on play both football and baseball at Duke and then played several major-league baseball seasons, mainly with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Colorado Rockies.