By DAN BISER
Sports Editor

Few high school football rivalries in North Carolina are as old and intense as the one involving the Whiteville Wolfpack and the West Columbus Vikings.

Since 1965, the two schools have met on the football field, and while Whiteville has held a sizeable upper hand in the series through the years, very little has taken away from the annual interest and intensity of the “backyard brawl.”

WHS and WCHS will clash for the 43rd time Friday night at 7:30 at Viking Field. Whiteville will bring a 2-1 record into the game while West Columbus is 0-3.

Whiteville has won the last four meetings, including a 47-14 decision last fall. The Wolfpack has won 31 games in the series and West Columbus has 10 wins. There has been one tie.

Coach Mark Little’s Whiteville squad is coming off a 34-0 home win over Red Springs. The Wolfpack has performed sporadically so far, particularly during first half play.

“We have to start coming out with more focus and intensity,” Little said. “We’ve come out pretty flat in all our games so far.”

West Columbus turned in its best performance of the season last Friday against North Brunswick as it rallied from a 27-6 third quarter deficit and battled back to cut the final deficit to 27-19.

“(North Brunswick) got two of their touchdowns when we had breakdowns on special teams play, and another when we had only 10 men on the field,” said WCHS head coach Vernon Brigman. “We had a chance to tie the score in the fourth quarter when we drove the ball into the red zone, but we shot ourselves in the foot with two penalties.”

As has been the case the past several years, this Friday’s Viking-Wolfpack match-up will feature teams that like to run the football.

Jarrod McKinney and Tyson Wilcox, who both had big rushing nights in last season’s win over West Columbus, are back in the Wolfpack backfield this season and their talents are again being counted on heavily.

Whiteville opened its season with a 21-12 road win at West Bladen, and then fell on the road to East Bladen 22-14
Travis Leggett, a four-year starter in the West Columbus backfield, had several long carries in last year’s game with Whiteville, and is joined this season by such players as Sean Brown and Torres Newkirk in handling ball-carrying duties.

The Vikings were plagued by turnovers in a 33-22 season opening loss to Heide Trask and they lost to East Columbus 30-15 in their home opener.

Whiteville senior Zack Stanley, who is also a top player on the Wolfpack soccer team, provides a strong kicking game as he has connected on eight-of-nine extra point kicks and has boomed several kickoffs into the end zone.

The teams feature starting senior quarterbacks who are also the starting shortstops of the their schools’ respective baseball teams. Whiteville’s Ben Deans and West Columbus’ Timothy “Batman” Brown are both starting at quarterback for the first time this season.

Coach Little said he feels that West Columbus’ second-half effort against North Brunswick gained some needed momentum for the Vikings.

“They battled back hard against a very good football team,” Little said. “They have a lot of team speed and their offense can give you some problems.”

Coach Brigman said that Whiteville always presents a challenge, particularly for a team still looking for its first win.

“They do a lot of things well,” Brigman said. “You can’t make mistakes against them.”