Football Game Preview: East Carteret Mariners vs. Gates County Red Barons

After each having a week off, the East Carteret Mariners and the Gates County Red Barons will shake off the cobwebs and hit the field against one another on the 14th. One thing working in East Carteret's favor is that they have posted at least 31 points in their last six games.

East Carteret is headed into the contest after thoroughly thrashing Pamlico County: they outscored them in every quarter. The Mariners' defense stepped up to hand the Hurricanes a 35-0 shutout on Friday. The matchup was all but wrapped up at the end of the third, by which point the Mariners had established a 21-point advantage.

Luke McIntosh

Passing Yards

10/31/25 vs Pamlico County	305
10/10/25 @ Lejeune	300
10/17/25 @ Northside - Pinetown	270
08/29/25 @ West Carteret	183
09/05/25 vs Arendell Parrott Academy	176
+ 5 more games

Multiple players turned in solid performances to lead East Carteret to victory, but perhaps none more so than Luke McIntosh, who threw for 305 yards and three TDs while completing 78.9% of his passes. The Mariners are 2-1 when McIntosh posts 250 or more passing yards, but 3-4 otherwise. A healthy portion of McIntosh's aerial production (148 yards to be exact) went to Jackson Greene, who also brought in a receiving touchdown.

Meanwhile, Gates County had already won two in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 26 points) and they went ahead and made it three on Friday. They blew past the Bruins 34-6. The game was pretty much decided by the half, when the score had already reached 20-0.

The win got East Carteret back to even at 5-5. As for Gates County, the victory also got them back to even at 5-5.

Everything came up roses for East Carteret against Gates County when the teams last played back in November of 2016, as the team secured a 56-0 win. Will the Mariners repeat their success, or do the Red Barons have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.