Tag Archive for: #highschoolfootball

SportsTalk: Vipers face off against Northeastern for Friday Matchup

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UPDATE – FINAL SCORE 

Northeastern 40

Vance County 8

RECAP MONDAY ON SPORTSTALK 

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The Vance County Vipers are on the road Friday to face the Northeastern High School Eagles in Elizabeth City.

Vipers Head Coach Aaron Elliott said he and Northeastern Head Coach Antonio Moore have known each other for awhile, and he expects a good matchup.

The 1-3 Vipers, however, are right where Elliott wants them to be as they get ready for conference play.

In preparing for the Eagles, Elliott said this week’s practice has been good. “We’ve had another good week. I really feel like the kids have bought in,” he said. Using data and statistics from the first four games, Elliott and the coaching staff have shown the players how they’ve improved week over week.

“They want to get better, so that’s a positive,” Elliott said.

In last week’s game against Rocky Mount, Elliott said he saw definite improvement. The Vipers had their biggest game on offense so far – a “plus” in the coach’s view, thanks in part to an improved passing game.

“We knew that we had a passing game, we just were waiting for the right time for it to click, Elliott said.

The Vipers’ coaching staff is keen to keep everybody healthy come conference time, and Friday’s game with Northeastern is the last non-conference matchup before the conference games kick in.

If the Vipers can get a couple of stops and get its offense rolling, Elliott said he thinks things will go well Friday.

The Eagles’ quarterback is a real weapon for the Eagles to be aware of. “After Week 4, he’s still the number one quarterback in the state as far as passing,” Elliott said. “They throw the ball real well, so we’ve worked on being able to cover and work on our defensive coverage.” They’ll run when they have to, but ultimately “they like to throw the football and take advantage of what you give them.”

With four games under their belts, the Vipers need to play four quarters of football to put some games in the W column. Elliott said they played a good first half against Rocky Mount but couldn’t keep the momentum going after halftime.

But Elliott isn’t fazed by his team’s record. “We set up this schedule to be tested,” Elliott said. “Getting tested before conference play is important to us. I’ve been telling my guys, we won’t face another team as good as Jordan. We’ve seen the best of the best.”

 

Vance County travels to Northeastern High School for Week 5 of the 2025 season on Friday, September 19th and you can hear all the action on WIZS 1450AM, 100.1FM, and online at wizs.com with pregame starting at 6:50 p.m. and kickoff at 7:00 p.m.

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SportsTalk: Northeastern HS Eagles Host Vance County Vipers Friday Night

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The Vance County Vipers travel to Elizabeth City Friday to play the Northeastern High School Eagles. The Vipers will have a lot of time to think about the 7 p.m. matchup against the 3-1 Eagles – it’s close to a three-hour drive to get to Pasquotank County, tucked up in the northeast corner of the state about 30 miles from the Virginia border.

That’s where Head Coach Antonio Moore is from, it’s where he played college football and that’s where he’s stayed to teach and coach.

Moore told WIZS’s Scout Hughes and Doc Ayscue Wednesday that he’s familiar with teams from Vance County, and he’s positive they’ll come ready to play.

The Eagles have a pretty good quarterback, junior Zak Ishman. “He’s one of the leaders in the state in passing,” Moore said on SportsTalk. The team also has a good D-Line and a host of receivers. “I’m really excited about this team,” he added.

Coming off a win last week, Moore said the team has had one of the best weeks of practice this season to get ready for the 1-3 Vipers.

He and his coaching staff have been preparing the team for the physical game that he said the Vipers will bring.

“They’re very physical, athletic, had a lot of enthusiasm on the sidelines,” Moore said of Vance County teams he’s faced in the past. “The kids play extremely hard. I don’t expect anything less Friday night.”

His team must limit turnovers and penalties if they are to come out with a victory, Moore said. “Our penalties have been off the charts lately.”

Moore said the Eagles’ loss to D.H. Conley a couple of weeks ago may have been just what the team needed to begin creating its own identity. The Eagles lost 22 seniors from last year’s team and had not lost a regular-season game since 2022.

“I think that loss did it for us,” he said. “I’m kinda grateful for that loss. We’re in a good place right now.”

 

Vance County travels to Northeastern High School for Week 5 of the 2025 season on Friday, September 19th and you can hear all the action on WIZS 1450AM, 100.1FM, and online at wizs.com with pregame starting at 6:50 p.m. and kickoff at 7:00 p.m.

 

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Vance County High School

SportsTalk: Vance County Football Week 4 Recap

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Scout Hughes and Doc Ayscue recap Vance County’s Week 4 game vs. Rocky Mount, as well as some of the other high school games in our area. The guys also talk about the college and NFL games that happened over the weekend.

High School Scores from Week 4:

  • Rocky Mount 41 Vance County 14
  • Louisburg 28 Franklinton 8
  • Wake Forest 42 Wakefield 7
  • Burlington Williams 24 Heritage 0
  • Sanderson 42 Knightdale 39
  • East Wake 28 Bunn 26
  • J.F. Webb 28 Eden Morehead 0
  • Warren County 13 South Granville 6
  • Wake Prep 49 ALA-Johnston 14
  • Amherst County (VA) 19 Mecklenburg County (VA) 0

College Scores around the area in Week 3:

  • NC State 34 Wake Forest 24
  • North Carolina 41 Richmond 6
  • Tulane 34 Duke 27
  • Virginia 55 William & Mary 16
  • Old Dominion 45 Virginia Tech 26 
  • ECU 38 Coastal Carolina 0
  • Charlotte 42 Monmouth 35
  • Southern Miss 38 App State 22
  • North Carolina Central 49 Fayetteville State 19
  • Louisburg College 38 Hudson Valley CC 10

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SportsTalk: VCFNF Week 3 Recap

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Scout Hughes and Doc Ayscue recap Week 3 in the High School Football Season. The guys also go over scores from college and the NFL.

High School Scores for Week 3:

  • Jordan 52 Vance County 0
  • Franklinton 26 South Granville 14
  • Millbrook 48 Wake Forest 7
  • Leesville Road 50 Heritage 3
  • Panther Creek 24 Knightdale 21
  • Southeast Raleigh 52 East Wake 7
  • Bunn 71 J.F. Webb 32
  • Louisburg 42 Northampton County 0
  • Wake Prep 54 Pamlico County 8
  • Hopewell (VA) 16 Mecklenburg County (VA) 14

College Scores around our area for Week 2:

  • North Carolina 20 Charlotte 3
  • Illinois 45 Duke 17
  • NC State 35 Virginia 31
  • Wake Forest 42 Western Carolina 10
  • East Carolina 56 Campbell 3
  • App State 20 Lindenwood 13
  • Vanderbilt 44 Virginia Tech 20
  • Old Dominion 54 NC Central 6
  • Presbyterian College JV 39 Louisburg College 29

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SportsTalk: 1-1 Vipers Ready to Face Jordan Falcons Friday

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UPDATE – FINAL SCORE 

Jordan 52

Vance County 0

RECAP MONDAY ON SPORTSTALK 

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Vance County Vipers Head Coach Aaron Elliott was able to find something positive in last week’s 33-6 loss to South Granville High School, and that’s enough to keep him and the team focused on Friday’s matchup against the Jordan Falcons.

The offense racked up “a considerable amount of yards,” Elliott told WIZS’s Scout Hughes and George Hoyle. “We improved from the week before. We’re not where we want to be, but we improved offensively.”

Elliott said there will be a half dozen or so JV players dressed out, mainly because of some lingering injuries hanging around.

“I’ve never had the injury bug hit us like it’s gotten us the last two weeks,” he said. Zion Thornton is still nursing an ankle injury he sustained in a pre-season scrimmage, for example.

“Our main goal with him – and everybody really – is to get them healthy for conference time,” Elliott said.

But he’s not looking past Jordan, which he said is a good team with a solid coaching staff. They’re 2-0 in the young season, and Elliott said the Falcons beat two good teams – a 22-20 victory over Leesville Road and a 30-7 romp over cross-county rival Southern School of Energy and Sustainability (formerly known as Southern Durham).

“I’ve told my guys all week, if we’re prepared and (we) do not make mistakes – if we play a mistake-free ball game, we can definitely compete,” he said.

Keys to the game are making sure the players are playing assignment football and executing the plays.

“We’ve talked all week about executing,” he said. “I think we’ve got a good game plan, we’ve just got to execute. We’ve got to line up right defensively and we’ve got to do all the small things offensively,” he added.

The Labor Day Holiday meant a shortened week of practice for the Vipers, but Elliott said the team has had a couple of really good days. At the team meeting, Elliott and his staff addressed first thing all the missed assignments and alignments that hampered the Vipers against South Granville.

“We made too many mistakes,” Elliott said of his team’s performance last week in Creedmoor. “The very first play on defense we lined up wrong.” But he’s not one to wallow too long in what could have been.

He told his team not to let that game define who they are as a team. “We want to win. We want our best out there, but we have to think about us being healthy going in to conference play.”

“We built this schedule to make us better…the next three weeks are going to be tough,” Elliott said, but that’s ok because it will only help toughen up the team for what Elliott hopes will be  strong conference play that extends through the regular season and in post-season play.

And, just for the record, the last time Vance County took the field against Jordan was in Elliott’s first year as head coach. After a lackluster first half performance, Elliott was able to rally his team for a second half surge and ultimately a W with a 28-27 final score.

“I’ve definitely learned, especially from that season, that these kids are going to fight to the end,” Elliott said. “Our kids didn’t fold.”

Vance County hosts Jordan on Military and First Responders Appreciation Night for Week 3 of the 2025 season on Friday, September 5th and you can hear all the action on WIZS 1450AM, 100.1FM, and online at wizs.com with pregame starting at 6:50 p.m. and kickoff thereafter at 7:00 p.m.

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SportsTalk: Warren County Sets Its Sights on the Vipers

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Friday’s County Line Clash pits the Vance County Vipers against the Warren County Eagles in the opening game of the fall football season.

Last season’s matchup was a close game, said Doc Ayscue, with the Vipers clinching it in the fourth quarter for the 18-0 victory over the Eagles.

And he and Scout Hughes are looking for another good game Friday. Kickoff is at 7 p.m. at Viper Stadium.

“It’s going to be an interesting game this year,” Ayscue said. The two schools are in different conferences following a reorganization last year – Vance County High School is 6A and Warren County is 2A, but

that doesn’t seem to bother Eagles Head Coach Victor Hunt.

Beginning his seventh year as head coach, Hunt said the off-season has been pretty good and he’s looking forward to going head-to-head with non-conference teams like the Vipers.

“We accept all the challenges,” Hunt said. “We want to win a state championship,” he said. “You do that by playing playoff caliber teams.”

If that results in some non-conference losses, so be it. Hunt sees them as learning experiences for his team, which, although young with a small group of seniors, has seen a good deal of playing time.

The Eagles participated in the recent Louisburg Jamboree, and Hunt said he saw a lot of good things on the field and some things to work on.

Friday’s game is going to be physical, he said. “That’s what we want…just being tough – that’s our brand of football.”

Penalties hurt them last season against the Vipers, he said, so limiting penalties and turnovers Friday will be key, he pointed out.

“The practice is always exciting Week 1,” he said, noting that there’s a little added pressure – especially for the seniors.

“It is a rivalry game, but it’s not going to determine any championships,” Hunt said. And his players are up for the challenge.

They’re rising to the occasion in guiding the underclassmen with their leadership and holding each other accountable for plays on the field.

holding each other accountable.

For Hunt, coaching is a blessing. “I think I have the greatest job in America. I love our kids. I love our community. It’s so much bigger than football…it’s about the family we’ve built here.”

Former players are returning to talk to this year’s team, working with them and offering encouragement.

“It means everything,” Hunt said. “I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

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SportsTalk: Black History of Sports in Vance County

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SportsTalk 12:30 p.m. M-Th 

Scout Hughes and Steve Lewis talk about the historical athletic programs that were at Kittrell College, a two-year HBCU in Kittrell, NC that has since closed it’s doors. The guys also talk about historically black high schools in the area such as Henderson Institute, Mary Potter, J.R. Hawkins, the Franklin County Training School along with others. As well as the role that the NCHSAC played in high school sports in the state of North Carolina. That and much more on SportsTalk!

This is a photo of the 1959 Kittrell College Bulldogs Football Team. Picture from the 1960 edition of the Kittrell College Yearbook “The Bulldog” found at the Granville County Public Library.

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SportsTalk: 2024 Season Recap For Vance County Football

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The Vance County High School Vipers didn’t go as deep into the playoffs as they had hoped, but a third year with nine wins or more is evidence that Coach Aaron Elliott is not just putting together a team – he’s building a program.

The 17-seed Vipers traveled to 16-seed Western Alamance Friday night for the first round of 3A state playoffs, but came up short and lost 36-31.

Doc Ayscue and WIZS’s Scout Hughes agreed that it was one of those back-and-forth games and whichever team had the ball last would come away with the W. “They were right there ‘til the end,” Ayscue said. “It was one of the best high school games I’ve seen.” When the winning score is made with 12 seconds left, you know it’s a tight game, he said on Monday’s SportsTalk.

Vipers Senior Javion Vines-holder made the highlight reel when he took a kickoff return 95 yards for a TD.

Western Alamance staff apparently had done their homework and were trying to keep the ball out of Vines-holder’s hands. But after the kicker had put the ball on the tee and turned his back to get ready for the kickoff, Vines-holder and teammate Tyler Wheeler switched places, so the ball went to Vines-holder and he took off for the end zone.

Ayscue said Western Alamance’s #5, James Newton, was the best player the Vipers faced all season. Newton rushed for 151 yards and scored five touchdowns Friday night.

“It’s hard to tell on film how quick he is, how fast he is – he had that quick acceleration,” Ayscue said.

For the season, three Vipers rushed for more than 500 yards. Senior Jontavious Nile ran for 1,237 yards and had 69 rushing yards against Western Alamance.

Then there’s Antoine Doyle, Jr, who racked up more than 500 yards in receptions.

“He’s a terrific athlete – offense and defense,” Ayscue said. When the play was “jet down the field and we’re going to throw it as far as we can,” it was Doyle’s number that was usually called.

But it was Vines-holder who, going into the game Friday, was tied for first place among all public high schools in the state for most interceptions. He had eight interceptions – but not in his role as quarterback – these interceptions are the kind that coaches like to see their defense make.

Ayscue said last season Coach Elliott regarded Vines-holder as possibly the best defensive back on the team. Then he took over as quarterback this season, Ayscue said, and became a great contributor on offense, too.

“He did it on both sides of the ball,” Ayscue said. Staff would “sneak him in (on defense) on obvious pass situations,” he added. “He did a great job – not just intercepting balls…he would chase (opponents) down and tackle them before they got too much” yardage.

Viper Senior Taeshawn Alston, who committed to play football at the University of South Carolina back in June, is the lone Viper whose season is extended by one game – Alston will represent Vance County and North Carolina in the Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas. That game takes place in Spartanburg, SC on Dec. 21. Kickoff is 1 p.m.

SportsTalk on WIZS 12:30 p.m. M-Th 

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SportsTalk: Vance County vs. Western Alamance Preview

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UPDATE – FINAL SCORE 

Western Alamance 36 

Vance County 31 

Vipers finish the season at 9-2 

RECAP MONDAY ON SPORTSTALK 

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SportsTalk on WIZS 12:30 p.m. M-Th 

Scout Hughes and George Hoyle sit down on SportsTalk to talk about the upcoming playoff game between Vance County and Western Alamance, in addition to other playoff games happening in our area. The guys also take a look at the new ADM numbers that came out on Wednesday and see where Vance County lines up.

Vance County travels to Western Alamance for the first round of the North Carolina 3A Football State Playoffs on Friday, November 15th and you can hear all the action on WIZS 1450AM, 100.1FM, and online at wizs.com with pregame starting at 6:50 p.m. and kickoff thereafter at 7:00 p.m. 

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SportsTalk: Vipers Wrap Up Regular Season Against Enloe

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UPDATE – FINAL SCORE 

Vance County 50 

Enloe 21 

RECAP MONDAY ON SPORTSTALK 

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SportsTalk on WIZS 12:30 p.m. M-Th 

With one game left in the regular season, Vance County High School celebrates the culmination of a wonderful season. Tallied with eight wins and only one loss so far. Eight wins that at times have put us on the edge of our seats. From Vance County winning in their first game of the season against Warren County 18-0 to the very next game beating Rocky Mount by just one point, 23-22. There’s the comeback against Louisburg in the rain after the Warriors scored 21 unanswered points. We have had plenty of things to celebrate this season, from Homecoming to Breast Cancer Awareness in our Pink Game, Military Appreciation Night, and on Friday, Senior Night. 

On Friday we Celebrate our 14 Seniors who have given their heart and soul to this Vance County Squad. During their time at the Varsity Level, these Seniors have accumulated a record of 18-2. Last year in 2023 they achieved the first 10-win season for a team from Vance County since Southern Vance met that mark in 2007. An outstanding record for these players:

  • #1 Javion Vines-Holder
  • #7/#0 Antoine Doyle Jr.
  • #8 Barry Henderson Jr.
  • #9 Taeshawn Alston 
  • #10 Jontavious Nile
  • #11 Elijah Holden 
  • #12 Corbett Southerland Jr.
  • #21 Tyrek Robinson
  • #40 Lee Kinney
  • #50 Maurice Jackson
  • #63 Camarion Ragland
  • #64 Kemari Branch
  • #71 Jose Rivera
  • #77 Antonio Bullock

 

The Vipers opponent for Senior Night is Enloe High School out of Raleigh. This will be an interesting matchup as a team from Henderson hasn’t played a team from Raleigh since 2016 when Southern Vance opened the year against Ravenscroft. Head Coach of Enloe, Ryan Clark joined SportsTalk with Bill Harris and George Hoyle on Thursday to talk about the upcoming game vs. Vance County. He says it’s a win-win for both teams to play each other, “This game improves both of our RPI Rankings and our strength of schedules. Vance County has only one loss on the year, and with us playing in a competitive 4A conference, it’s beneficial to both of us.” Vance County is 8-1 on the season, finishing runner-up in the Northern Lakes Conference to Southern Durham, while Enloe is 6-3 on the season and finished third in the CAP-6 4A Conference. Both teams are expected to make the state playoffs for their respective classifications. Besides Southern Durham, this may be the toughest team yet for the Vipers and certainly a great test.

There are plenty of things on the line for Friday’s game between Vance County and Enloe. Both teams are looking to improve their playoff seeding. Vance County is looking for a win as their seniors play one last regular season game at Viper Stadium. Coach Aaron Elliott said at the beginning of the season that Triangle football is more than just Raleigh and Durham, he said it’s Henderson too. Vance County has that opportunity to prove why the Vipers should be included with the best of the best from the Triangle.

 

Vance County will host Enloe High School out of Raleigh on Senior Night for Week 12 of the 2024 season on Friday, November 8th and you can hear all the action on WIZS 1450AM, 100.1FM, and online at wizs.com with pregame starting at 6:50 p.m. and kickoff thereafter at 7:00 p.m. 

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