Vance County Friday Night Football is on the air Friday night at 6:45 pregame and 7 p.m. kickoff.  Live on 1450 AM and on wizs.com!  Listen for all the live play by play.  Northern Vance is off this week.  Please see full schedule below the scouting report.

Southern Vance is now 4-4 overall and 3-2 in the Northern Carolina Conference !  The Raiders are tied with Warren County for 4^th place in the NCC, which sets up a fascinating match up between Southern and Warren next week that may detemine the playoff fortunes for both teams.

To Recap the Raiders’ season so far:  After a very impressive 2-1 start to their conference schedule, followed by a very physical (almost brutal) 51-6 beating from undefeated South Granville 2 weeks ago, Southern had the difficult task of preparing to meet the other unbeaten team, Roanoke Rapids, last week.  Raiders’ Coach Darry Ragland certainly did something right during the week running up to the home game with the Yellow Jackets, because his team, which left Creedmoor the preceding Friday night severely battered,  pulled off a stunning 44-27 win over RR to knock the Jackets out of the unbeaten ranks and into 2^nd place in the league. That win can be rightly called an upset, given the disparity in the records of the two teams, but it did not look much like an upset while it was happening.  Raider QB Elijah Stewart, who was knocked out of the South Granville game at halftime with a foot or ankle injury, never passed better, and his receivers were never more sure-handed, than they were against the Jackets last week; and the defense, which had not been a consistent strong point for Southern this season, kept the Roanoke Rapids running backs bottled up for most of the game.

Southern Vance has gotten back on the wining track at a good time, and their home game against Louisburg this Friday night gives the Raiders every opportunity to improve to a winning record of 5-4 going into the Warren showdown.  Southern has already bested the other 1A member of the conference with their 50-19 victory over Granville Central, and should be able to knock off Louisburg.  Although the Warriors won their season opener 41-0, that was against KIPP Pride, which has been shut out or clobbered by most of the area 1A and 2A teams, (e.g., Granville Central beat the Pride 33-8), and Louisburg has been struggling mightily ever since.  They were the victims of Northern Vance’s first win of the season two weeks ago, and they come back to Vance County this week dragging their 1-6 record behind them like Marley’s chain.  They have had a week off to recover, but the Warriors do not seem to have what it takes this year to compete with a team which, like Southern Vance, has tasted the blood of victory and is on its way up.

Louisburg has been shut out three times this season and has a 13 point-per-game scoring average.  They have a freshman quarterback who might be quite good in a year or two, but who only passes for about 25 yards per game.  The Warriors rely on a running game centered around Sr. RB Amonte Moses who has averaged 66 yards rushing per game, along with another 20 yards per outing in receiving yards.   Moses has 2 of his team’s 9 TDs this season, and Soph Elijah Mitchell has 2 rushing scores.  Five other players have rushed for TDs, which suggests that Louisburg does have some depth in the backfield, and can look forward to a better season next year.