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It's football time in the Brick City

john cate, the sanford herald, n.c.
·4 min read

Aug. 18—For the first time in many years, there will be more than two high schools in Lee County playing on a Friday night.

Lee County High School, either under its present name or as Sanford Central before that, will be starting its 73rd season of competition. Southern Lee, which opened its doors in 2005, will be starting its 19th.

But at 7 p.m. tonight, Lee Christian will host Hobgood Charter School and will play its first-ever official game of football. The Falcons and Yellow Jackets, who are hosting Northern Durham with a 7:30 kickoff, will start off in front of the home folks. Southern Lee has to ride the bus, but they won't be far away, taking a 17-mile ride down to Western Harnett for the Cavaliers' first game under new head coach Fred Blanks.

HOBGOOD CHARTER AT LEE CHRISTIAN

The Falcons are starting their football history with a four-game homestand. Their first game will be against an established program in Hobgood Charter School of Halifax County.

The Raiders have had an interscholastic sports program for more than 50 years. Hobgood Charter was founded in 1969 as Hobgood Academy, a private school, but joined the state's charter school program in 2019. In 2017 and 2018, it fielded a team jointly with nearby Northeast Academy and won the NCISAA 1A 8-man football title. It is now an NCHSAA member and has 25 players on its 2023 roster, 10 more than the Falcons. Hobgood is not a member of a conference in football, and plays against both 8-man and 11-man teams. They will actually rematch the Falcons this season on Oct. 14 in Hobgood.

Lee Christian begins its first season with some players with real talent, but even its most experienced players have not played since middle school. Hobgood is a small school but has more experience, and this is a commodity that the Falcons can only gain by playing.

NORTHERN DURHAM AT LEE COUNTYThere was a time in the 1980s when this would have been one of the marquee matchups on any week of North Carolina high school football. However, Northern Durham has fallen on hard times and opens 2023 trying to get back to where it once was.

Under former head coaches Ken Browning, a 2008 inductee of the NCHSAA Hall of Fame, and his successor Gary Merrill, the Knights were perennial contenders for a 4A state title, winning it in 1993, and at one point winning 65 straight regular season games. However, the program tailed off badly in the early 2000s. They went 24-8 between 2017 and 2019, but have just four winning seasons in the past 15. They are coming in off a 2-8 season where they lost 50-0 to Scotland.

The Simmons Ratings on NCPreps think that Northern Durham has improved since then and tabs the Yellow Jackets as a 25-point favorite to win tonight, even though Lee has to replace its quarterback and some other key performers on both sides of the ball.

The game will be Senior Night for the Jackets, who decided to honor their senior players on opening night this year.

SOUTHERN LEE AT WESTERN HARNETTIt's not often in recent years that Southern goes into a game, especially on the road, as a favorite. However, the Simmons Ratings favor the Cavaliers by a single point over their nearby former league rivals.

Western, like Southern Lee, has had problems building any momentum in its football program in recent years. The Eagles also won just one game a year ago, and have struggled for so long that the last winning season for Western Harnett occurred all the way back in 2005, the year many of the current seniors on the team were born. Western went 7-4 that season, then went 0-11 two years in a row and have never recovered.

Against Southern, the Eagles will have an advantage in experience, with 12 seniors and eight juniors on the team's 28-man roster. Western graduated its top quarterback and runner from a season ago, but senior Brayden Hopkins played a lot under center last year and has an explosive target in classmate Bryce Browning, who hauled in 38 passes for 590 yards and eight touchdowns even though opposing defenses knew he was getting the ball. Browning, a 6-foot, 185-pounder, was outstanding in a preseason scrimmage at Northwood. A big part of Southern's defensive strategy will revolve around containing him.

The Herald will follow all three teams throughout the season and the games for the two public schools will be on the radio again this year. Lee County games will be broadcast on 105.5 FM WFJA and the Southern Lee games on WWGP 95.1 FM and 1050 AM.