Local football teams to play Monday
Published 3:32 pm Saturday, September 3, 2016
- Jaquez Ruffin gets ready before Washington’s game at Tarboro in Week 2. Ruffin and the Pam Pack are working through confusion thanks to weather-related postponements. They have the luxury of having a bye week next week.
Washington coach Sport Sawyer has rarely, if ever, seen a game moved up from a Friday to a Thursday night only for it to be postponed until the following Monday. It’s thrown the Pam Pack off a bit. The team, which started the season 0-2 against two very strong opponents, was looking forward to its home opener against another incredible team in Conley.
“Two out of three weeks, we’ve had to change things around,” Sawyer said. “Ninety-nine percent of times when you move a game up a day, you get the game in. This will be my first experience like this. On both teams’ part, getting ready to play and then not playing, it’s interesting.”
If nothing else, it gives Washington a little extra time to prepare. The Pam Pack is off this coming Friday, thus doesn’t have another game to prepare for and can completely commit to gearing up for the Vikings.
The coaches already had a good idea of what they’ll be getting from Conley. It isn’t a secret that Conley relies almost entirely on outscoring opponents. Washington will hope to follow up the 548 rushing yards Ayden-Grifton put up on the Vikings last week.
Northside and Southside, which were scheduled to meet in Chocowinity on Thursday, don’t have the same luxury that Washington has. Their game was rescheduled for Monday and both have to play again on Friday.
That game has been circled on the calendar for both clubs. It will be a test for a Panthers squad that has high hopes for this season while Southside will face its first tough test after losing a lot from last year’s team that played for the eastern title.
Preparations don’t change much for either group since they operate very much the same on offense.
“You’ve got to deal with it,” Northside coach Keith Boyd said. “We had a half a day on Friday and we’ll come in early on Monday to get things rolling. … Southside is a lot like we are. They’re going to do what they’re going to do. We’re going to try to do what we do.”
Boyd believes the game will come down to a few different things. Among those is who is more disciplined. Any penalties at crucial points in the game could determine the outcome.
Boyd is looking forward to how the size he has on the offensive and defensive lines matches up against the Seahawks’ athleticism up front.
“I think it’s going to be a game of who doesn’t make the mistakes,” he said. “We’re kind of like how they were last year. We have a lot of size. Even though we may be a little bigger, they’re athletic up front. They do some good things and they’re aggressive.”
Each game was pushed back to Monday thanks to the tropical storm that began coming through on Thursday. Northside at Southside will kick off at 7 p.m. Washington’s home opener is slated to start at 7:30 p.m.