WIZS 1450 AM provides double coverage tonight of Northern Vance hosting Bunn and Southern Vance hosting Hertford County. All the radio coverage begins at 6:45 and continues until the final play is done. Everything is On Air and streamed live at wizs.com or via WIZS on Tunein.
— Scouting Reports by Jeff Jenkins
Northern Vance finishes up a 3-game home stand with its most difficult test so far this season against regular 2A powerhouse Bunn. The Wildcats form a team that seems to have everything a championship team needs every year. Their coach, David Howle, has been in charge for 25 of the past 29 years (the last 4 years in a row), and they have not had a losing season since 1988, Howle’s first year. Over the past decade, the Wildcats have been to the state playoffs every year. Last year was the Wildcats’ best ever: They lost 2 regular season games to larger schools, but swept their Northern Carolina Conference, including a 51-18 win over Southern Vance, and went to the state finals for the first time, losing the championship game to finish 13-3 overall. For the entire 2015 season, including playoffs, they averaged an almost unbelievable 48 points per game scoring, breaking a school record for total points scored, while allowing 23 per game. Along the way to these impressive numbers, Bunn defeated Northern Vance handily last year 49-18.
How does this year’s Wildcats team compare to last year’s? This time last year they were 1-2, with losses to Wilson Fike and Southern Nash, but still averaging 42 points per game scoring, and allowing 32. This year, they are 2-1, losing to Southern Nash last week, but winning a 24-20 squeaker over Fike in their season opener. Last year will be a hard act to follow, especially considering that so many key performers were lost to graduation, including school single-season rushing leader Tevin Perry, who gained over 2,000 rushing yards behind a huge, talented offensive line, all 5 of whom also graduated. Even Coach Howle has admitted that an entire unit is hard to replace in one year. However, Sr quarterback Quenten Wright is entering his fourth year as a starter, and backup Christian Murray has a strong arm, and he may see action with Wright lining up as a wide receiver. Bunn has plenty of depth in one area – fullbacks. Chris Bumpers, who gained 900 yards on the ground last year as a short yardage RB, returns for his senior season, and he is sharing the running duties with sophomore Raequan Dunston, who scored 2 TD’s last week on runs of 2 and 6 yards. Also, starting defensive lineman Omar Rosa is again available as Bunn’s “human bowling ball,” lining up at fullback in short-yardage and goal-line situations. One lucky addition for the ‘Cats is the addition of speedy running back D. J. Jones, a senior transfer from conference rival Roanoke Rapids, where he accumulated more than 1,800 yards on the ground as a sophomore. Bunn continues its tradition of effective kickers with Thomas O’Campo, who hit a 25 yard FG last week at the close of the first half.
Even with a 2-1 start, a consistently excellent defense and a respectable 25 point scoring average, it would be overly optimistic to say that Northern Vance is in the same league as Bunn; but starting in 2017, they will in fact be in the same 2A conference, so it’s time for the Vikings to start figuring out how to play toe-to-toe against the Wildcats.
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Last year, Southern Vance traveled to Ahoskie to play the Hertford County Bears for the first time in recent memory – or maybe ever – and got their helmets handed to them in a 47-0 shut-out. The 2015 Bears went on to finish 9-4, and second in their conference, the very competitive Northeastern Coastal 2A. Hertford scored 38 points per game last year and allowed 24, and went to the playoffs for the 10th year in a row. Their starting quarterback passed for over 3000 yards and 33 TD’s and scored 8 more times on the ground. Then he graduated without leaving an experienced back-up.
In the Bears’ first three games this season, however, quarterbacking has not seemed to be a problem. Jr. Lance Hunter has passed for 199 yards per game and 6 touchdowns, scattering his passes among eight different receivers. Apparently the Bears coaching staff does not plan for Hunter to run the ball – he has only gained 11 yards on 7 runs – but he is flanked by Jr. RB Kyeem Perry, who averaged 115 yards rushing per game last year for 19 touchdowns, and who ran for 145 yards and 1 score in one game this year. We are not sure why Perry did not play in the other 2 games, but the other Jr. RB, Zion Riddick, gained just under 100 all-purpose yards per game for all 3 games this season. Only Perry and Riddick have gained significant yardage on the ground so far this season, which may explain the 1-2 start for the Bears. The passing offense is alive and well, however, with 4 senior receivers available for Hunter as targets: Jaquarii Roberson led the team last year with 113 yards receiving per game for 19 touchdowns, and he has started this season with 81 yards per game and 2 scores. Roberson is followed by Justin Sessums, who has averaged 41 yards for 2 games. Rawshaun Beamon caught two touchdown passes in one game, but has apparently not played again; and Perry caught a pass for a score in his one game.
Sr. Da’andre Beverly has also caught passes this season, but he is primarily an asset at defensive back. Last season he averaged 4 solo tackles per game, led the team with 4 interceptions, running one back for a TD, and he blocked a FG and a punt. The rest of the Bears defense is small-to-medium sized – their leading tacklers so far this year are Sr. OLB Alex Maxbaur, at 5’11 and 208 lbs with 11 tackles per game, and Sr. DE Demetress Freeman at 6’1” and 200 lbs. with 10 per game. The defense appears to work as a unit, however, with 4 more players averaging 5 or more tackles per game, and another 10 players with at least one tackle per game.
Offensively, Hertford County may be in for one of its weaker seasons, which seems to happen about once every 3 seasons, with very little running game, unless Kyeem Perry returns to the line-up. So the Raiders should be able to defend the pass and keep the score lower than last year. But with no established starting quarterback until Corey Twitty Jr. returns from injury, with Malik Boyd missing playing time due to injuries, and with their tendency to stop themselves from scoring with turnovers and penalties, Southern Vance may be hard-pressed to avoid another shutout from this down-east traditional powerhouse.
The Raiders’ best bet will be to have one of the their 4 “quarterback committee” members throw the ball in the general direction of Zamari Ellis and let him out jump however many defenders he has on him at the time – a play which has produced at least one TD in every game so far this year. Those 4 quarterbacks are also capable of gaining yards and keeping drives going – they rolled up well over 200 yards on the ground against Northern Vance last week – but the holding penalties will have to be minimized by the blockers – only 142 rushing yards went into the books last week because of the 6 or 8 penalties accrued on running plays.