It’s been said of the South Piedmont Conference that you have to go through Cabarrus
County to get to the state 3A high school football playoffs.If that’s true, then East Rowan’s home game with
Central Cabarrus tonight is crucial for the Mustangs, who are seeking their fourth
straight playoff berth.
However, maybe it’s not true this season.
Maybe it’s a Rowan County season in the SPC.
Kannapolis A.L. Brown, which is located in
Cabarrus but draws a lot of its students from Rowan, is the early SPC favorite, as usual,
but the other Cabarrus schools may not be quite as tough as preseason ratings indicated.
The N.C. Prep Football
News ranked Kannapolis, Concord, East and Central 1-2-3-4
before the season began. The Wonders, as expected, are 2-0, but Concord and Central are
off to 1-2 starts.
Concord’s Spiders have been the league’s
early surprise, losing the first two games to Lincolnton and Monroe before holding off
winless Salisbury 30-13.
Central’s Vikings are also 1-2, beating only
Mount Pleasant.
East Rowan (2-1), which has beaten Kannapolis
twice and Central three times over the last three seasons, and improved West Rowan (3-0)
are hoping to make this a Rowan season in the SPC. West, which has an open date today, has
to wait until next week to start its league schedule.
Last week’s high school prediction record was
16-1with the only incorrect pick being Mooresville over Northwest Cabarrus. Last
week’s best picks were West Rowan over North Rowan by 27-24 (West won 29-22), East
Rowan over Mount Pleasant 42-8 (actual score 41-7) and Davie County over North Iredell by
28 (War Eagles won by 29).
This week’s guesses:
East’s Mustangs have defeated Central by 14,
14 and 35 points the last three meetings. Central will be seeking revenge for a 42-7 loss
to East last year, when the Vikings’ star quarterback, Clayton Russell, went out for
the season with a knee injury — East Rowan 28, Central 17.
South Rowan and Salisbury meet for the first time
since 1972 at South tonight. Both teams are winless, but showed signs of life last week
when South scored 31 points in a loss to Kannapolis’ Wonders and Salisbury pushed
Concord to the limit for most of three quarters — South Rowan 21, Salisbury 15.
Davie’s War Eagles play host to Ledford in an
interesting nonconference matchup. Davie, of course, is 4A, while Ledford is 2A. Coach
Doug Illing’s Davie club can make it four straight — Davie 21, Ledford 10.
North Stanly’s Comets meet big rival West
Stanly. The Comets have lost to two county rivals already, Albemarle and South Stanly. It
could be an offensive battle — West Stanly 28, North Stanly 22.
Kannapolis takes on Sun Valley’s Spartans.
Enough said — Kannapolis 49, Sun Valley 6.
Other choices: Concord over Piedmont, Northwest
Cabarrus over Harding, North Davidson over Lexington, East Davidson over South Davidson,
High Point Central over Greensboro Smith, Greensboro
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