A month remains before high school sports can officially begin practices, and football doesn’t even start practicing until February. But with football schedules recently released, I wanted to take a brief look at who each of the local schools will be competing against during the abbreviated season.
Complete preseason breakdowns for each school will come closer to the start of the season.
North Surry’s schedule was featured in the Sept. 30 edition of the News, while Surry Central’s schedule was included in the Oct. 2 edition. Up next is the defending 1AA State Champion, East Surry.
Broken Streaks
The 2021 season will see the end of two streaks that were each intact for more than half a century.
Since East Surry fielded its first football squad in 1961, North Surry and Surry Central have been on the Cardinals schedule every year. Since the Greyhounds and Golden Eagles now compete in the 8-team Western Piedmont 2A Conference, both are restricted to playing only conference games in the 2021 7-game schedule.
North Surry leads the all-time series against East Surry, 32-26 (with one tie), but the Cardinals have won 6-of-7 games since North left the Northwest Conference in 2013. East leads the series against Central, 43-16, and is also 6-1 against the Eagles since 2013.
Another WPAC team usually included in East Surry’s non-conference schedule is West Stokes. The two were part of the Northwest 1A/2A Conference until the WPAC was formed in 2013. Since then, East holds a 4-3 record over the Cats.
2021 will also be the first time since 2008 that East will not play Starmount. East Surry holds a 10-4 advantage over the Rams in that time. The Cardinals have won the last eight games against Starmount, which includes 3 postseason meetings in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Spring 2021 schedule
East Surry is permitted two non-conference games in 2021 since there are only six teams in the NW1A Conference.
The first will be a road game against North Davidson on Feb. 26. The only previous meeting between East Surry and the Black Knights was in 1966. North Davidson won the playoff meeting 17-7.
North Davidson finished fifth in the 10-team Central Carolina 2A Conference in 2019. The Knights reached the Sweet 16 of the 2AA State Playoffs.
The second non-conference game is against Reidsville and will be the home opener for East Surry. East Surry’s 55-49 win in 2019 marked the first meeting between the two teams. It was also Reidsville’s only loss of the year as the Rams went on to win the 2A State Championship.
Conference play starts on March 12 when East travels to Bishop McGuinness. The Cardinals are 15-1 against Bishop all-time, with the only Villain win coming in 2010.
East Surry returns home on March 19 to host Winston-Salem Preparatory Academy. The Cardinals have never lost to the Phoenix on the gridiron. With the exception of a 17-13 win in 2016, each Cardinal victory over Prep has come by at least 38 points.
East hosts two Stokes County teams the next two weeks. The first will be against North Stokes. East Surry holds a 51-2 record against North Stokes, with the Vikings’ only wins coming in 2011 and 1975. The Cards won the 2019 meeting 63-7.
The game against South Stokes was originally supposed to take place in Walnut Cove. However, the 2019 meeting between the Cardinals and Sauras was moved from East to South due to weather so the teams just swapped hosting duties.
East Surry’s 63-14 win in 2019 was the Cards’ eighth-straight win over the Sauras.
The regular season will conclude with East traveling to Mount Airy. Since the Northwest Conference became exclusive to 1A schools, there has only been one season in which either East or Mount Airy won the outright conference championship. That season was 2016, when there was a three-way tie between East, Mount Airy and Walkertown.
East Surry won the 2019 Surry Super Bowl, 42-10.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com