In his first year as head coach of the Vance County High School Vipers, Coach Wilbur Pender has his team sitting at 5-1. Not bad for a first year coach. When asked if he expected the team to have this kind of success this season he responded, “We could be wherever we worked to be.” Right now that means sitting at the top of the conference. The Vipers are coming off their fourth consecutive victory, a hard fought 18-12 win over South Granville last week.
“They were well coached,” Pender said of the Vikings. “We took whatever the defense gave us. We were efficient enough to make South Granville’s defense stay honest,” Pender added. With only 1 victory, on paper it looked like South Granville would be easy but the Vikings put up a fight. This week, Granville Central also is, on paper, a solid opportunity for the Vipers to move to 7-1. Granville Central is 0-7 but Coach Pender, who used to coach there, says the team is building things and is very young. With Friday’s game being somewhat of a homecoming for Pender it’s likely Granville Central would enjoy nothing better than taking the Vipers down a notch.
Pender respects what Granville Central is doing but he has been preparing some new wrinkles with the Vipers. He says he isn’t adding anything new to what has worked but just a few tweaks here and there.
We’ll see those tweaks, perhaps, Friday night at Granville Central. Bill Harris and Doc Ayscue will broadcast the game live on WIZS beginning immediately following the Joy Christian Center broadcast around 6:45 with kickoff at 7 p.m.