— by Jeff Jenkins, WIZS
West Craven at South Granville — Friday, November 16, 2017
Looking very much like a Team of Destiny, the undefeated Vikings of South Granville started their 2AA playoff run last Friday with a 41-21 victory over Washington County in Creedmoor. Washington was the #14 seed in the 2AA East bracket, with an overall regular season record of only 4-7; but to their credit, the 21 points they scored on the Vikings was 2.5 times the average points allowed by South Granville per game this season, and they held the Vikings to 8 points for the entire second and third quarters. But South Granville scored 20 points in the final quarter to put the game away, gaining 503 total yards in the process, with 446 of those yards on the ground from scrimmage.
This Friday, the #3 seed Vikings will keep the home field advantage when they face the #6 seed, West Craven. The visiting Eagles, from Vanceboro (just north of New Bern) are in the same conference as Washington, the Eastern Carolina 2A, and will have about a 300 mile round trip tonight. The Eagles finished the regular season 6-5 overall, but took their league championship with a 5-1 conference record and a 25-23 upset win over Kinston, which finished 9-3 on the season after losing their first round playoff game last week. West Craven scored 47 points in their regular season win over Washington, but they averaged only 24 points per game on offense on the season as a whole, including last week’s 28-7 opening round win over Richlands. The Eagle defense has allowed 23 points per game, revealing a weakness on defense that South Granville will try to exploit with their bruising ground game.
So tonight will be a battle of two conference champions, and the South Granville Vikings should keep that in mind. However, that is about all these teams seem to have in common, since, South Granville is 12-0 on the season, averages scoring 43 points per game, and allows their opponent to score under 9 points per outing.