Prep football notebook ..
North Rowan’s Jareke Chambers will be part of the North Carolina squad for the 78th Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas to be played in Spartanburg, South Carolina, on Dec. 20.
The 2013 Rowan County Offensive Player of the Year, Chambers owns North Rowan’s records for rushing yards in a career, season and game. He’s the ninth Cavalier to be chosen for the prestigious game and the 72nd player from Rowan County.
North Rowan had not had a player picked for the Shrine Bowl since 2003 when lineman Ronald Foxx represented the school.
Carson’s MyQuon Stout was Rowan’s lone representative last season.
The most recent West Rowan player in the game was Hunter Mashburn in 2011. The most recent Salisbury player was Ibn Ali in 2007. East Rowan’s most-recent Shrine Bowler was Ben Weisensel in 2003. South Rowan’s last selection was Chris Drye in 1988.
The first 18 Rowan players picked for the Shrine Bowl came from Salisbury’s Boyden High in the years from 1941-53.
In 1955, four Rowan players were picked for the squad, and that’s still the record. Tom Page and Ronnie Bostian were picked from Boyden’s state-championship team that year and were joined by China Grove’s Carl Drye and Spencer’s Larry Wagner.
In all, 30 Boyden players were picked for the Shrine Bowl. The 30th was the great Robert Pulliam in 1970.
The Shrine Bowl included black players for the first time in 1966. The first black player chosen from Rowan County was Boyden’s James Teal in 1967.
There also was a separate Shrine Youth Bowl game for black players that took place annually in Greensboro from 1946-66. Rowan County had many representatives in that game, starting with J.C. Price’s Steve Gilmore in 1946.
Since Boyden was renamed Salisbury High in 1971, seven Hornets have been picked for the Shrine Bowl. Ali is the only Salisbury player picked for the Shrine team in the last 38 years.
The breakdown of the 72 Rowan County players chosen for the Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas — Landis (1), Spencer (1), Carson (1), South Rowan (2), China Grove (3), Salisbury (7), East Rowan (8), North Rowan (9), West Rowan (10) and Boyden (30).
Seven of the 10 Falcons in the game have been chosen since 2006.
• North Rowan (4-2) was off last week and needed that down time to heal numerous injuries. The Cavaliers open CCC play Friday at Lexington without star receiver Sakil Harrison.
West Rowan coach Scott Young said the two best players on the field in Friday’s epic 43-37 two-overtime win against Carson were WR sophomores — running back Jovon Quarles and receiver Kortez Weeks.
“I don’t know that people realize how young we are,” Young said. “We’re in position to be very good next year and even better the year after that.”
• After four straight weeks of shutting down running games, West Rowan (5-1, 3-0 SPC) couldn’t stop Carson, which rolled for 336 rushing yards.
“We had some defensive linemen — Derrick Moreland, Justin Evans, Darius Williamson — playing well, but we didn’t get the linebacker play we needed,” Young said.
• DB Quameak Lewis made 13 tackles for the Falcons against Carson.
• Harrison Baucom made an awesome play on a punt-snap over his head, recovering the ball, evading rushers and getting the punt off. The rugby-style punt traveled a good distance.
• Some young Falcon defensive players — jayvees Tyler Wheeler and Devin Turner — were thrown into the fire Friday.
“The way Carson plays, you have to rotate a lot of guys,” Young said.
• Huge offensive tackle Hezekiah Banks, a college prospect, has returned from injury.
If the good Carson shows up Friday, South Rowan could be in for a long night.
There are two Carsons. There’s the one West Rowan’s Young watched lose to Mount Pleasant and Central Cabarrus on film, and there’s the Carson that showed up in Mount Ulla to play the Falcons.
“They were a whole lot better against us than anything we had seen,” Young said. “That’s a pretty good football team. Coach (Joe) Pinyan had his guys flying around on defense. We hadn’t seen them play like that defensively, but that’s a tribute to us. We get everyone’s best shot.”
Carson’s big defensive guys — 6-foot-5 Alex Lyles and 230-pound Ryan Bearden — played with unusual ferocity. The Cougars had their best game of the season, by far, at stopping the run.
• Carson (2-4, 1-2 SPC) had three 100-yard rushers against West Rowan. Darren Isom and Brandon Sloop do it every week, and fullback Dylan Livengood had a breakout game.
• Besides being Carson’s top receiver, Brandon Huneycutt was outstanding Friday fielding and returning some booming Baucom punts.
• West Rowan QB Kacey Otto had a dream night, but he had one bad read, and his pass was picked off by Jonathan Rucker.
• Carson is a long way from being out of it. Three SPC teams that finished 3-5 in the league made the playoffs last season.
Max Wall is one of the county’s top sophomores and has been a huge factor on offense lately.
He’s had 13 pass receptions the past two weeks and he rushed for a season-high 153 yards in a 49-35 loss to Hickory Ridge.
• East Rowan (2-4, 1-2 SPC) picked off three passes against Hickory Ridge, the first time the Mustangs have done that since their 2012 playoff loss to Concord.
• DB Willie McCree had a pick and a fumble recovery on Friday.
• Samuel Wyrick has thrown 175 passes this season and has been intercepted only twice. He has 17 TD passes and has had at least one TD pass in 15 straight games.
• Seth Wyrick is up to 125 career catches and needs 11 to tie Johnny Yarbrough’s school record. He’s had at least one catch in 25 consecutive games.
• After a slow start, tight end Simon Soles has produced 16 catches the past four weeks.
While the Raiders got mauled 55-0 by Cox Mill on Friday, South Rowan’s defense allowed only 137 rushing yards and still leads the county in that category.
• South Rowan (2-4, 1-2 SPC) experienced a series of special teams breakdowns against Cox Mill. Throw in another slow offensive night — just 80 yards of offense — and a lopsided score resulted.
• QB Aaron Kennerly (shoulder) was cleared to play last week.

Salisbury
Issues on punts were the biggest problem in Salisbury’s 33-14 loss to Southeast Guilford in a game played last Thursday because of weather concerns.
Salisbury was down to its third long snapper against Southeast Guilford, and that was part of it. The Hornets handed Southeast Guilford 18 points on special teams.
• Fullback Willie Clark is the heart of Salisbury’s offense for the second straight season. Clark has 934 career rushing yards and could get to 1,000 on Friday when the Hornets (1-5) open CCC play at East Davidson.
• Salisbury is better than last year. The Hornets were routed by Southeast Guilford in 2013. The Hornets held their own in the trenches this time.
• DB Dante Gaston played well against Southeast Guilford and had seven tackles. His season high is 12 tackles against West Rowan.
The Wonders lost 48-35 to huge, talented Vance in a Mecka game on Thursday.
They were down 20-0. They came back to make it a game and actually led 21-20 late in the third quarter.
“There were a lot of positives,” A.L. Brown coach Mike Newsome said. “Offensively, that was the best we’ve played. You’d love to be able to take away that first quarter and see what happens because we played well for three quarters. If we’d played like that in all our games, we wouldn’t have lost to anyone except Vance.
• Former A.L. Brown QB Josh Endicott is now playing at Clay County High in Celina, Tenn.
• The Wonders (3-3, 1-1) are home for what should be a routine win against Robinson on Friday.

When Davie County (4-3, 0-2 CPC) lost 58-31 to Reagan two weeks ago, it was the most points the War Eagles had allowed in a game since 1995. Then Davie lost 59-29 to North Davidson last Friday.
It’s not like Davie County’s bad. The league is good. West Forsyth and North Davidson are still unbeaten.
“That league Davie plays in is a bear this year,” West Rowan’s Young said.
Young witnessed Reagan QB Jake Easter running three 4.3 40s in a single day at a Shrine Bowl combine.
Follow Mike London on Twitter at @mikelondonpost3.