By By BRIAN HAINES, Sports Writer
Area teams got off to a good start last Friday as Southside, Northside, Riverside and Plymouth each opened up their season with a victory.
Riverside notched the first win in the newly formed school’s history, and tonight its rival South Creek will look to do the same when it plays North Pitt.
DeWayne Kellum and his Seahawks pitched a shutout in their first game of the year, while the Vikings showed their running game has not lost a step in their impressive win over Farmville Central. Northside got a tremendous rushing effort from running back DeMarquez Martin which enabled them to run past Creswell. Tonight each one of those teams are back in action, here is a look at the matchups:
North Pitt (1-0) at South Creek (0-0)
Cougars breakdown:
Coach: Jeremy Jones, first year
Key returnees: Reginald Parker, Tevon Shepherd
Offense: Triple option
Defense: 3-4
Last Sunday South Creek head coach Jeremy Jones celebrated the birth of his second child, Collen Jones, and is hoping to keep the celebration going as he attempts to win the first-ever football game in Cougars’ history.
The newly formed South Creek High School is a result of the merger between Roanoke and Bear Grass High Schools, and tonight the school will host North Pitt.
“We are excited. This summer we have done a lot of scrimmaging but tonight we will find out what we are made of,” Jones said. “We are excited to go out and play a game that counts for something.”
While the rest of the area teams kicked off their seasons last Friday, the Cougars had a bye. Jones said that having the first week of the season off had its pros and cons.
“With me having come in later in the summer it wasn’t so bad to have an extra week to try and cleans some things up,” Jones said. “But playing 11 weeks in a row is going to be tough.”
Jones said that he has seen a lot of progress since Cougars camp began.
“We started out not being too sure of what are doing. We would have little mistakes like not knowing when a guy should be in motion and things like that,” Jones said. “But now we can line up and we have seven or eight plays that we feel really good about and we are adding more each day. … When you run the option it’s all about being fast. You’re not always going to read it right, and you’re not always going to make it perfect, but if you do it fast it can still fake out a defense.”
South Creek will rely on returning quarterback Reginald Parker to run Jones’ triple option offense when it squares off against North Pitt tonight.
The Panthers (1-0, 2-A Eastern Plains Conference) started off their season with a 28-15 win over Washington at home.
Jones said North Pitt’s offense is in the midst of a transition.
“In the past they have been more of a shotgun spread team that could run a little bit,” Jones said. “But it seems like they have gone back to being more of a power-I team and try to control the ball and the clock.”
Creswell (0-1) at Southside (1-0)
After a three-year hiatus Southside coach DeWayne Kellum has come back to coach the Seahawks and it looks like he and the team have not missed a beat. Kellum led his crew to a 22-0 win over North Duplin on the road last Friday and tonight he will look to build on that momentum at home against Creswell (0-1, Tideland).
“Anytime you can set your first goal and accomplish it that’s pretty good,” Kellum said. “What I was really pleased with was that we kept fighting in the second half. We had a lot of players playing both sides of the ball but we maintained our shutout.”
Kellum said starting out the season with a victory has helped the bonding between the new coach and players.
“I think it builds up some trust between the players and coaches,” Kellum said. “(The players) showed us that they are capable of stepping up to the plate, and we showed them that we do know what we are talking about. … We’re still not ready for the big dogs yet but we are walking our way up the ladder.”
The next rung on the ladder will be the Tigers, who lost their opener to Northside 30-20. Other than the fact the Creswell runs the wing-T offense, Kellum said he is not too familiar with the Tigers but knows that their coach Wayne Rodgers will have the team prepared to play.
“I don’t know whole lot other than Wayne Rodgers is an old, good friend of mine and I know even if he only has 11 players they are going to rock the snot out of you on both sides of the ball,” Kellum said. “They play hard every year and he does some amazing things at that small school.”
(Tonight Southside will be holding its Military Appreciation Night. All military, retired and active duty will be admitted free to the Creswell- Southside football game with presentation of ID.)
Northside (1-0) at Pamlico (1-0)
The Panthers opened up their season with an impressive 30-20 win over Creswell on the road last Friday as they were led by a great effort by running back DeMarquez Martin and the Northside defense. Martin paved the way for the Panthers’ win by galloping for 229 yards and three touchdowns.
Tonight’s contest pits two teams that suffered through rocky 2009 seasons but look to be headed in the right direction in 2010.
Last year Northside won only three games, but on Friday got a good win over a quality Creswell team that at one point last year was the second-ranked 1-A team in the state.
Pamlico (1-0, Coastal Plains) won only one game a year ago, and equaled that feat already as the Hurricanes rolled past East Carteret 36-0.
Northside coach Keith Boyd was happy to get a win against the Tigers, but said there is still a lot of room for improvement.
“We have to do a better job of holding on to the ball,” Boyd said. “Last week we had four turnovers, and even though I was happy to get 30 points, I still feel like we left some out there.”
Boyd said the team’s biggest improvement from a year ago was on the defensive side of the ball. Boyd praised the efforts of the unit that is led by MLB Brandon Ussery and said he looks it to continue to develop.
Edenton-Holmes (1-0) at Riverside (1-0)
A last-second, one-handed catch by Romelle Lanier handed Riverside a 28-21 win over Ayden-Grifton for the first-ever victory in the newly-formed school’s history. This week, head coach Asim McGill is hoping his team won’t need last-second heroics when it hosts Edenton-Holmes (1-0, 3-A/2-A Northeastern Coastal).
McGill said looking back at his team’s opener there was a lot to be pleased about.
“I thought defensively we played pretty good. (Ayden-Grifton) had 47 rushes for 150 yards, that’s pretty good. They kept the ball for most of the third quarter, but our defense had that bend-but-don’t-break mentality,” McGill said. “I thought offensively we had some guys that stepped up. I think on offense we are going to have a lot of different weapons this year. We’re not going to be as one-dimensional as we have been in the past.”
McGill also noted that there are plenty of areas his team needs to improve in.
“Offensively, we just had too many turnovers. The first points (Ayden) had was on a scoop-and-score after a botched snap on a punt,” McGill said. “We had a couple of players that we were in position to make a tackle and didn’t; we didn’t do a good job of open-field tackling.”
The Knights will play their first-ever home game tonight against Edenton-Holmes, who squeaked out a 14-13 win over Northampton-East last week. Like the Knights, the Aces are a spread team, but like to run more option plays. McGill said his team will have its hands full when it takes the field tonight.
“Edenton always has some good athletes. They have a new coach and they looked pretty good on film,” McGill said. “We have to go out there and win the turnover battle. When you win the turnover battle and the kicking game you have about a 85-90 percent chance of winning the game, and that’s what we have to do.”
West Montgomery (1-0) At Plymouth (1-0)
The Vikings began the 2010 campaign in impressive style as they gashed Farmville Central with their running game en route to a 41-14 season-opening victory last Friday.
Plymouth running backs Ronnell Blount, Elmer Cooper and Carl McCray helped the school rush for over 300 yards in its victory.
“I think we blocked and tackled real well,” Plymouth coach Robert Cody said. “We pursued to the football real good and our kicking game was good. Chris Rogerson did a nice job punting and kicking extra points and we ran the ball real well.”
The Vikings will need their running backs to duplicate last week’s effort on Saturday when they host football power West Montgomery out of Charlotte. The Warriors will head to Plymouth after opening their season with a 35-0 win over South Robeson.
“They are a really good school, they finished second in the west last year to the team that beat Southwest Onlsow in the state championship,” Plymouth coach Robert Cody said. “I looked at some of their film and they are a double-wing team and their quarterback is really fast.”
Cody said that while he was extremely happy with the run game, his team will need to step up its passing effort if it wants to improve to 2-0.