SportsTalk on WIZS 12:30 p.m. M-Th 

As we approach another week of high school football in the Tar-Heel State, two teams, two high schools, two counties side-by-side. Vance County will travel to Louisburg to take on the Warriors who have a respectable winning record so far in 2024.

To start off SportsTalk, Scout Hughes and George Hoyle spoke about the history of teams from Vance County vs. Louisburg High School. These schools have played each other a total of 32 times, based on research from WIZS. That number may seem small compared to some of the other schools that Vance County has played in their existence. George gave a good reason for this, “At least from the mid-70s on, Louisburg was a 1A school up until a few years ago…They were 1A when I was growing up…Vance County never played Louisburg.” It wasn’t common for Vance, a 4A school in the 80s, to play a 1A school like Louisburg. This all-time series starts way back in 1923 when Henderson played Louisburg and won 45-6. Henderson and Louisburg would play again in 1924. After that, a team from Vance County would not play Louisburg until 1993 when the Warriors defeated Southern Vance 34-0. Between Northern and Southern Vance, the Vikings and Raiders played Louisburg a total of 29 times.

The 2024 edition of Vance County vs. Louisburg offers a different set of circumstances. The game has been moved to Thursday as opposed to Friday due to weather conditions that are expected to fall on Friday.

After reminiscing the history between the two squads, Louisburg Head Coach Dontae Lassiter joined SportsTalk to preview the game between the Vipers and the Warriors. Coach Lassiter likes the way his team has performed so far given their winning record. “Our defense has been getting better every game. Offensively we lost a lot last year, lost a lot of our touchdowns to graduating seniors. They’ve improved. I like our youth.”

Going into this week Coach Lassiter has stated that he’s looked at Vance County’s film and has high marks for the Vipers, “They’re extremely athletic. Physical team. Like I said their quarterback is pretty good. He is a tough kid to contain. They’ve got a good running back, he’s a downhill runner. They’ve got a few good receivers that they can toss the ball to. Offensively they’re really good, in all facets. On defense, they’ve got some dudes as well…If we do what we’re supposed to do and play a good game, we may be able to contain them.”

To sum it all up, Coach Lassiter gave us his keys to beating Vance County on Thursday, “We need to play probably I say two halves of football. I don’t think we’ve done that this year. We played only maybe one half of football in every game we played in and that’s kind of evident with some of the scores. Some of the games we lost I think if we could’ve played both halves we would have won those games too. We’ve got to contain their athletes and their explosive plays. On offense, we got to find a way to get the ball in the endzone, and eat a little clock as we do it.”

Louisburg Head Coach Dontae Lassiter has a message to his Warrior fans for Thursday night, “Come out and cheer us on and we’re going to try to get it done.”

Coach, we will see you then!

Vance County travels to Louisburg for Week 6 of the 2024 season on Thursday, September 26th 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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