D.Clay Best and Tim Stevens can't agree on who will win three games between teams with Wake County and Johnston County.
West Johnston has beaten Garner in football for the last two years. Few, if any, of the West Johnston seniors have ever played in a losing varsity football game against the Trojans.
They will tonight.
Garner (2-2) still isn’t a mighty offensive machine, but its defense has been good all season. The Trojans allow only 55 yards rushing and 10 points per game. The Wildcats (1-3) have scored one touchdown in each of its last two games.
Southeast Raleigh (2-2) has the tools to down Clayton (2-2). The Comets had waited 295 days for another shot at Wake Forest-Rolesville after a 55-0 playoff loss in 2009, but dug themselves a hole early in last week’s game. Wake Forest won 27-0. Southeast’s two losses have been by a total of two points.
Knightdale (0-4) will nip Smithfield-Selma (1-3) to give the Wake County school’s a 3-0 sweep tonight against its Johnston County rivals in the Greater Neuse 4-A.
-- Tim Stevens
I’m going to repeat what Tim said to start with, plagiarism charges be darned: West Johnston has beaten Garner in football for the last two years. I repeat: West Johnston has beaten Garner in football for the last two years. On paper, it didn’t make much sense in 2008 or 2009. Statistically, it doesn’t again; doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen again. Sophomore quarterback Justin Carroll and junior running back Cameron Umphrey will lead West’s charge to do it again, posting breakout performances.
Clayton’s going to beat Southeast Raleigh as well. Why? It’s an odd-numbered playing date of course. Clayton’s 2-0 in those, 0-2 in even numbered games. And this game is always close, no matter what. The biggest margin of victory in the past four years in the series is 11 (last year). It will be close again; the Comets have already shown they can win a close game this year, while the Bulldogs have already lost two of those.
Smithfield-Selma and Knightdale are both in the building process with first-year head coaches introducing new systems. The Spartans have shown signs of progress in the past two weeks. Knightdale hasn’t scored in three weeks, so you’ve got to go with SSS.
— D. Clay Best
