MORGANTON, NC (October 12, 2018) — It was Homecoming night at Freedom High and the home side was full of most Freedom fans decked out in their red, blue, and white, with the exception of one wearing his Duke hoodie (yes!!) and the young ladies and their escorts dressed to the nines to add elegance to the occasion. With that, a word of congratulations to Madison Dalton on being selected Homecoming Queen 2018. Having met she and her family after the game, this young lady was obviously very gracious and humble with this recognition.
For the South Caldwell gridiron performers, they would have loved nothing more than going to the west side of Morganton and crashing the Homecoming party with a win; perhaps to vindicate the surprise of falling to McDowell in the Homecoming game a week earlier after being heavily favored.
Certainly, it is a wonderful distinction when the local press thinks enough of your body of work to make such projections. With South entering this game with a 2-5 record and Freedom at 6-1, chances are that the local media are going to pick the team with the better record at this stage of the season.
Games, as we well know, are still won on the field. And that is exactly what the Patriots did in soundly defeating the Spartans by the count 58 to 14. Freedom scored on eight of their ten drives and gained 461 total yards on offense and held South to 130 yards of total offense from scrimmage.
Spencer Piercy had some bright moments in the game by gaining 84 yards on eight carries while platoon quarterbacks Jason Martin and Avery Raynor combined on six completed passes, one on a six-yard toss to Malachi Sumner. Sumner also sacked Patriots quarterback Jayden Birchfield for a ten-yard loss and Gray Felts also picked off one of Birchfield’s passes.
“Freedom is a good team on both sides of the football. We have trouble with team speed and the gets us behind the eight ball in games like these. They especially made it difficult for our guys running the football” commented Spartans head coach Marc Kirkpatrick.
South will be on the road again this Friday night at Hickory High School. For South to qualify for post-season (yes, it is that time again), they will need to win their next three games and for McDowell to lose their next three. Game time is 7:30pm.