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Before the North Carolina High School Athletic Association football playoffs begin this season, there is one more game to be decided this weekend, the County Championship.
Chase, who held off East Rutherford last year, will try to defend The Rutherford County Championship on Friday. This time the Trojans host the Cavaliers at Allen Stadium at 7:30 pm.
Here are my keys to the game:
1) Can East Rutherford stop the run? It’s no secret, Chase is going to ground the football right at you. The East defense will be tested along that avenue, but Tyrell Boykins of Chase did throw for 137 this past weekend, which gives another element that Chase has been up and down with all year. The East defense has been suspect all year, but so has the Chase offense.
2) Chase has the two best defensive ends in the SMAC in Tray Watkins and Shevon Logan, so it will be up to interior defense to contain East Rutherford’s Lovell Robinson and T.J. Watkins.
3) Momentum. Both schools have suffered some hefty loses on the scoreboard lately. Any sort of positive start maybe instrumental in how the game plays out.
4) Turnovers. I think that could be the deciding factor overall, but we will see about that on Friday.
All four County teams lost last Friday, but Thomas Jefferson gave a valiant effort against a top five 1A school in Hendersonville. In the 35-21 loss to Hendy, Mac Martin also joins the 1000/1000 club. Martin has thrown for over 1400 yards and now has rushed past 1000 yards this season. The Gryphons go to Owen this Friday.
Chase posted 337 yards of offense, but it still wasn’t enough in a 44-18, Freedom win. East Rutherford had no answer for Shelby in the Golden Lions 52-21 win.
R-S Central went to Crest to play Burns. Despite being down 13-6 at the half, Burns returned the opening second half kickoff to win going away, 49-6. The venue was moved from Burns to Crest since somebody 24 hours before kickoff, let a bunch of goats onto the field and well…messed it up and caused health concerns too. R-S Central will go to South Caldwell to close out the season.
Down in Chesnee, the Eagles continue to soar as the outlasted Blacksburg 48-43 on the road. Chesnee (8-1) carries a five-game winning streak and will host Crescent High this Friday.
As we hit late October, NASCAR turns into Martinsville, Virginia for the TUMS Fast Relief 500 at the Martinsville Speedway. Just four races remain in the 2012 Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship and Martinsville’s fun, half-mile usually throws a curveball to title contenders.
Presently, Brad Keselowski has the lead by seven points over five-time champ, Jimmie Johnson. Denny Hamlin is 20 behind, Clint Bowyer, 25 and Kasey Kahne hangs around, only 30 markers out of the lead.
Jimmie Johnson (6 M-ville wins) and Denny Hamlin (4 M-ville wins) by far are the two best of the contenders here at Martinsville. In fact Johnson, who miraculously came back to finish eighth this past weekend at Kansas after crashing at the halfway point of the event, has failed to only finish 55 laps at Martinsville in his 10,000-plus laps there.
However, Bowyer maybe my sleeper to grab a win this weekend since he stayed in the top five all day in the April event here before a bonzi move in the final two laps sent Ryan Newman to victory lane instead.
Keselowski has finished 19th or better in five trips to Martinsville, but never better than ninth. Kahne has just one top five finish in his 17 Martinsville starts.
The big story will be the return of Dale Earnhardt Jr., who missed two races because of a concussion. Junior is expected to be cleared to race this weekend and he has talked about Martinsville as a major target on his list of venues to accomplish victory at.
Could also be interesting to see of Kyle Busch gets some revenge of sorts for this past crash at Kansas with help from Ryan Newman as he mentioned after the wreck occurred.
Well, I love visiting the short track in Virginia. If you can’t catch the contact sport in person, just go to ESPN as they will have flag-to-flag coverage this weekend at 2 p.m
