The 256-team extravaganza that is the North Carolina high school football playoffs begins on Friday. Eventually, eight state champions will be crowned on Dec. 11 on the campuses of N.C. State, Wake Forest and UNC-Chapel Hill.
Click here to view MaxPreps' North Carolina football playoff brackets.Here are the highlights from the final week of the regular season:
1. Mixed week for Porter Ridge: Just days after
Porter Ridge (Indian Trail) was forced to forfeit a game, ending its reign as the only undefeated team in Union County, the Pirates defeated Sun Valley (Monroe) for the first time in the program's six-year history, 27-20 in double-overtime, clinching the Southern Carolina 4A/3A title.
The last week of the regular season began when Porter Ridge had to forfeit its 52-14 Week 3 win over Forest Hills (Marshville) because a player participated in a junior varsity and varsity game in the same week, according a report in the Monroe Enquirer-Journal. The violation, which was self-reported, also carried a $250 fine.
The Pirates (10-1), the 10th ranked team in the state 4A poll, blew a 14-0 lead in the final six minutes of regulation against the Spartans (9-2). After both teams missed extra points in the first overtime,
Jordan Oakley caught a touchdown pass from
Lee McNeill to start the second extra period and
Zach Bevington clinched the win with an interception.
2. League title long time coming: One of the more unlikely league champions is
Alexander Central (Taylorsville), which won its conference outright for the first time in 27 years by beating Hibriten (Lenoir), the third-ranked team in 3A, 21-20 in overtime. Jeremy Whisnant, who missed a 20-yard field goal at the end of regulation for the Cougars (9-2), ended up kicking the winning extra point minutes later after Corey Roberts scored on a 4-yard run.
"(The miss) was back there (in my mind), but it's one of those things where you tell yourself you're going to hit the next kick," Whisnant told the Hickory Record. "My teammates and coaches told me to keep my head up, and I'd get my chance. They said they believed in me the whole way."
Tripp Patterson — who had 146 yards rushing and all three Pirates touchdowns on 20 carries — had scored on the first possession of overtime, but Hibriten (9-2) had its extra-point attempt blocked for the first time all season.
Hibriten had won 15 straight games in the Northwestern 4A/3A league, including five this year by a combined score of 212-10, according to the Lenoir News-Topic. The Panthers had also beaten Alexander 48-7 last year with the league title on the line.
3. Another championship decided in overtime: In a game that featured five touchdowns of more than 50 yards,
Western Alamance (Elon) defeated No. 5 Northern Guilford (Greensboro) 35-28 in overtime to win the 3-A Mid-State league title. Quarterback Nigel P. Carlton threw a 10-yard touchdown pass to Quinton Richmond with 16 seconds left in regulation, and ran it in himself from a yard out in overtime. He also had TD passes to B.J. Bunn for 81 yards and Jordan Gaines for 52 yards and even provided a science lesson to readers of the Greensboro News-Record.
"We knew we had heart from the beginning," Carlton said. "We just gave it all we got — 212 degrees. That's the temperature that water boils. It doesn't boil at 211. That's just hot water."
Freshman Justin Wilson clinched the game with an interception.
T.J. Logan had scored on runs of 80 and 66 yards and a catch of 59 yards for Northern Guilford, who never trailed in regulation.
4. Florida recruit out for season: Asheville clinched its sixth straight Mountain Athletic Conference title with a 48-27 win over Erwin (Asheville) behind 250 yards from junior Tysean Holloway, the seventh-best total in school history. But the mood was soured by the news that Florida-bound
Jeoffrey Pagan tore two ligaments, the MCL and PCL, in his right knee and will have to miss the Dec. 18 Shrine Bowl and Jan. 8 U.S. Army All-American game.
"It's a great win, but it came at a great cost," Asheville coach Danny Wilkins told the hometown Citizen-Times. "It just made me sick to see him go down."
Pagan, a defensive end, injured his knee while replacing an injured starter at fullback. If there's any silver lining, Wilkins told the paper that Florida coach Urban Meyer wrote a letter during Pagan's recruitment that his commitment would be honored in case of injury.
Despite being ranked 10th in the state 3A poll, the Warriors were unable to beat Asheville for just the second time in 23 years. But Erwin senior Shaquan Curenton did set a western North Carolina single-season record with four interceptions returned for touchdowns this year, and also scored on an 85-yard kickoff return.
5. Losing team stuns No. 5 Smith: In perhaps the biggest upset of the weekend, 4-7
Southern Alamance (Graham) scored 20 unanswered points to knock off previously-unbeaten Ben L. Smith (Greensboro) 20-17.
Josh Henderson provided the winning points on a 31-yard field goal with 36 seconds left against the No. 5 team in 4A.
The Burlington Times-News reported that the Patriots made only one first down in the first half — a 60-yard touchdown pass from
Tripp Gordon to
Justin Crawford.
"To ruin their undefeated season is the biggest win in school history for us," Gordon said in the Greensboro News-Record.
Interestingly, Henderson was in range for the winning field goal because the Golden Eagles attempted a fake punt from their own end zone with two minutes left.
"Sometimes life is the best teacher," Smith coach Rodney Brewington said. "The team that sees us next week will see a hungry and more focused team."
EXTRA POINTSButler (Matthews), the top-ranked team in the state, finished its regular season with a 61-6 win over Independence (Charlotte) to extend its winning streak to 26 games. But the good news stops there — the Charlotte Observer reported on Wednesday that star running back Deion Walker, who scored 23 TDs this season, withdrew from the team due to a legal issue. ...
New Bern (10-0) had an undefeated regular season for just the second time since moving to 4A in 1969, according to WCTI12. Josh Taylor threw a school-record 23rd touchdown pass in the Bears' 31-7 win over Rose (Greenville).
