No game is more important than another. If a team gets the job done early in the season — like Southside did this year with a 4-0 start — it takes the pressure off when October rolls around. Then teams will be fighting for higher seeding rather than simply making the playoffs.

Washington and Northside are in the other boat. They’re trying to piece together a run that will land them in the postseason. They’re the ones with tons of pressure on them at this juncture, but they can look back at past iterations of their team in which they picked up key wins at this time of the year.

Here is what Beaufort County’s coaches remember about past victories in early October:

 

Washington at Farmville Central, 2014

The 2014 Pam Pack team was good, but the adage “seeing is believing” was still pertinent. It got all the confidence it needed after traveling out to Farmville Central for its conference opener. Markel Spencer rushed for 173 yards and two touchdowns to win the defensive standoff, 13-12. Lexroy Brown led the team with 19 tackles and was one of six defenders to notch double-digit takedowns.

“I remember our defense stoped them on fourth down in the red zone, and then Markel’s 80-yard touchdown with a minute to go kept our conference-championship hopes alive and allowed us to get the No. 1 seed in the 2-A east,” coach Jon Blank recalled. “That game was an absolute battle. It also kept our kids believing that the season was a special one.”

 

East Carteret at Northside, 2013

There are a lot of parallels between Northside’s 42-34 win over East Carteret in 2013 and its clash with Tarboro on Friday. The Mariners were down that year, but it was clear that they were on the rise as a 1-A powerhouse in the east. The Panther defense struggled to contain receiver Jacque Brown, but locked down everything else East Carteret tried. That put the offense in a position to take over.

“You don’t ever know what’s going to happen. You go into it with a positive attitude and give it the best you can,” coach Keith Boyd said. “At that point in time, (East Carteret) was down a little bit. We lost another game to them at their place. … It was a shootout.”

 

Riverside at Southside, 2015

Southside and Riverside have had some recent nail biters in non-conference play. The Seahawks got a pair of touchdown in each of the second, third and fourth quarters to beat the Knights, 46-42, in 2015. Lawrence Brown rumbled for 225 yards and two touchdowns. Matt Baxter, Amari Peele and Johnny Sullivan each scored, too. Defensively, Brandon Sullivan and Trajan Rhome — then sophomores — had sacks in the shootout win.

“It was a shootout from the get go. I think they took the opening kick back,” coach Jeff Carrow remembered. “From there, we were just exchanging points left and right. … It felt like one of those high-scoring college games. Lawrence had a huge night. We had thrown in a different formation, which helped. By the time they adjusted to that, we switched back to our base formation. Everybody had a pretty big game.”