It was a great feeling getting back into a normal Friday routine as High school football returned to action last Friday night and for this week Friday is not that far away, so let’s take a look at the matchups from the 2A/3A games in our local listening area.
Chapman @ Union
The Chapman Panthers are coming off a hard-fought lost to MVP last Friday Night 27-9 the game for a long time was closer than the final score would show as it took MVP to the late portions of the game to pull away, so Chapman’s defense gave the offense some changes to take the lead but they were unsuccessful.
The Union County Yellow Jackets took on the Broome Centurions at Vikings Stadium on Friday night and without question they came into this game as the underdogs once again but the Yellow Jackets played their best game of the year. The game did go into overtime as they surrendered a late score to allow Broome to tie the game at 22, but Union bounced back nicely and scored right away in OT and got the stop to secure their first region win of the year and their second win overall.
Without question, this is the best game the Union defense has played in a while, and now they will be facing a Chapman team that has really struggled to find consistency on offense. So will Chapman generate some offense against a Union defense that struggled for the majority of the season, or has Union figured it out defensively and will cause Chapman’s offensive struggles to continue? That will be what I am looking to see come Friday night.
Liberty @ Chesnee
The Chesnee Eagles are coming off another loss last Friday Night as they traveled to Clinton to falling 46-21. Clinton is a strong football team and this was a tough matchup for Chesnee as it got away from them pretty early, so they will look to bounce back and try to get their first region win of the season this Friday night against Liberty
Liberty is coming into this game with a 3-2 record and this will be their first region game of the season of the year. Liberty can put up points they are averaging 38 points per game this season, so Chesnee’s defense will have another challenge this week, but Liberty’s defense does give up some points as they are averaging 29 points per game.
I think for Chesnee to win this one they have to establish their run game, which was pretty solid for them last week against Clinton despite the loss, but they will need to chew up the clock, and if their defense can string together a few stops they will give themselves a good chance to win this one.
Clinton @ Landrum
The Landrum Cardinals were back in action last week and were one of the hottest teams before Hurricane Helena paused the season, but they picked up right where they left off with a 28-6 win over Blacksburg to start off region play with a win, but it won’t be a walk in the park this week at home as they have Clinton coming into town.
Clinton as mentioned earlier beat Chesnee pretty easily last week 46-21, Clinton has been great offensively but their defense has struggled at times this year as they are averaging allowing 25 points per game so you can score on them, it’s about getting stops to give yourself a chance to beat Landrum.
If the Cardinal’s defense is up for the challenge I believe the Cardinals do have the offensive firepower to score and keep up with Clinton, but this game will come down to which defense will make a few more plays, and this game should be an exciting one.
Woodruff @ MVP
The Woodruff Wolverines are entering their first region game of the year and they were dominant in their non-region portion of the schedule going 5-0. They will be on the road to take on MVP this week and this game could very well determine the region champ.
MVP as mentioned earlier defeated Chapman in their opening region game 27-9 the game as mentioned was closer to the end when MVP started to pull away. For MVP in my opinion this is their biggest test yet going against another undefeated squad that has been playing great football coming in.
One concern that I have for Woodruff is they had a bye week last week, which means they haven’t played football in weeks as we saw last week many teams looked rusty and this is a game where the Wolverines can’t afford to come out rusty. This should be a great game that I see going back and forth and definitively the one I want to follow most closely this week
