Playoff Road Game Stories

[HowerinJr]

I've heard some crazy stories in my life about playoff road games. Probably the best one I've heard is an opposing team ran the sprinklers on the field all night the night before in order to slow them down. Several players were injured playing on grass their coaches felt was unsafe. I can't verify that story, but it sure was interesting. I was curious what some of your first hand stories are playing in or attending road games in the playoffs.

 

[Thunder_struck8712]

I remember hearing stories of it being so cold when Elkin played at Hayesville in 2002 that the grass was cutting players when they hit the ground.

 

[Sportsnut17]

I've heard some crazy stories in my life about playoff road games. Probably the best one I've heard is an opposing team ran the sprinklers on the field all night the night before in order to slow them down. Several players were injured playing on grass their coaches felt was unsafe. I can't verify that story, but it sure was interesting. I was curious what some of your first hand stories are playing in or attending road in the playoffs.

Nice topic, I like this. Hope to hear some good ones.

 

[vikandpiratepride]

Looking forward to reading some good stories

 

[Thunder_struck8712]

Nice topic, I like this. Hope to hear some good ones.

I bet you have plenty to share

 

[Mitchell county mountie]

Hmmm, back in 2010 Avery beat Mitchell in the regular season. The 2 met up in the 3rd round in Newland, Mitchell won by 25 points. It was about 3 degrees and breezy that night. I remember a football got popped because it was so cold. Averys Alex Villanueva threw a bullet about 8 yards, and when it hit the receivers hand, it popped.
The next weekend Mitchell travelled to Albemarle. About half their players had full beards and tattoos lol. I'm pretty sure the NCHSAA was checking birth certificates pregame lol.

 

[Thunder_struck8712]

I remember when Cherokee played Elkin in 2005 in the 4th round. I decided to go to the game and don't ever remember seeing a visiting team travel like that. Cherokee took 1/4 of the seats on the Elkin side on top of the visiting side. If you've been to Elkin, there are a good amount of seats on that side. I have heard rumors that Cherokee wanted their medicine man to bless the field pregame to which Richard Grissom replied "%@$% no ain't no medicine man ain't blessing my field." Not sure how true that is. Either way Elkin hammered Cherokee that night and apparently overlooked North Duplin the next year in anticipation of an Elkin rematch.

 

[Deana_King_rivals106402]

I will never forget my second trip to Murphy back in 2002. It snowed on us off and on during the trip. When we got there at the high school around 3, there was a helicopter flying a few feet over the field trying to dry the field off. Later that night, we beat the Bulldogs to advance to 3rd round. It was a nice ride back from SMC country (ironically our only road SMC win ever).

In 2008, we were 4th seeded in 2A and had to go to top seeded South Columbus approximately 45 mins from the beach. Nobody gave us much of a chance but we kicked a field goal at the end of the game to win. By the way, the “chicken bog” there was delicious.

There are several more in my 30+ years of watching Starmount football.

 

[WHChoops]

Not a playoff story but a crazy story. My freshman year at Avery we were at Ashe ( before they combined so there was a northwest Ashe and a beaver creek) and there was a plane( more like a gocart glider) circling the field during the game. All of a sudden it nose dives into the woods at the back of the end zone. Game stops. Apparently this guy has a suicide note and is trying to crash the plane/ gocart onto the field. True story.

 

[WHChoops]

I've heard some crazy stories in my life about playoff road games. Probably the best one I've heard is an opposing team ran the sprinklers on the field all night the night before in order to slow them down. Several players were injured playing on grass their coaches felt was unsafe. I can't verify that story, but it sure was interesting. I was curious what some of your first hand stories are playing in or attending road in the playoffs.

Lol was that at heritage? They’ll never replace that pasture In the Pitt

 

[swe98]

I've heard some crazy stories in my life about playoff road games. Probably the best one I've heard is an opposing team ran the sprinklers on the field all night the night before in order to slow them down. Several players were injured playing on grass their coaches felt was unsafe. I can't verify that story, but it sure was interesting. I was curious what some of your first hand stories are playing in or attending road in the playoffs.

Sounds like when Reidsville came to SWE for rd 3 in 09. Field is in swampland. 7 previous games. Late November. Rained all week. Yet, we "wet the field to slow them down", they said. The field was complete mess, and we did it on purpose. Smh.

 

[Deana_King_rivals106402]

We played at Newton-Conover back in 1987 and the field was so wet but it hadn’t rained in days. Lol...guess that worked cause we lost 16-7.

 

[WHChoops]

We played at Newton-Conover back in 1987 and the field was so wet but it hadn’t rained in days. Lol...guess that worked cause we lost 16-7.

lol, sounds like a game in “ the Pitt”. Home field advantage is real! Lol

 

[swe98]

We played at Newton-Conover back in 1987 and the field was so wet but it hadn’t rained in days. Lol...guess that worked cause we lost 16-7.

Wow. Lol

 

[HowerinJr]

Sounds like when Reidsville came to SWE for rd 3 in 09. Field is in swampland. 7 previous games. Late November. Rained all week. Yet, we "wet the field to slow them down", they said. The field was complete mess, and we did it on purpose. Smh.

That's the one. I wasn't going to give it a name and a face unless it came up. Yeah, I talked to a Reidsville guy and they are still bent about it to this day. And they WON! That's the funny part. They won their state championship and they couldn't let go of the fact that they only beat SWE by 2 points on a wet field.

 

[HowerinJr]

I've got a ton of interesting stories, but the most recent one was from the 2016 season. Tarboro had a 9-2 record but was ranked #3 in the East POD behind East Carteret and WRH. Granville Central entered the playoffs at 5-6, but ranked #2 in the Mideast POD because they were the "champion" of a split 1A/2A conference. Basically the only thing they had to do to be champion is beat out Louisburg. So Tarboro had to drive 90 minutes for what amounted to a squash match. That's not even the crazy part...

The visiting stands had a 4 row set of bleachers. They didn't have nearly enough seats for all our fans. The Granville Central home stands were ok, held maybe 1500. They might have had 250 fans on their side. Before long, Tarboro had fans on the home side and there was a call and response chant going from one side of the field to the other. "Tarboro!...Vikings! Tarboro...Vikings!" Late in the 2nd quarter, the GC PA announcer comes on and says by order of the sheriff's department, all Tarboro fans must leave the home stands and go to the visiting side. I was just stunned. Tarboro was up 47-0 at that point anyway, so instead of going and standing in the hole on the other side, we just headed to our car. We happened to run into a deputy sheriff on the way out and asked him why they made us leave. He said they had no authority to move us unless we were did something illegal.

I heard later that Granville Central was fined by the Association because they didn't provide sufficient seating for a playoff game. On the field, it was exactly what we expected, but the fans really got screwed that night.

 

[TarVikes]

2011- Tarboro was playing at East Duplin in the first round. It had been raining the whole day. Instead of going ahead and postponing the game before the Tarboro team bus and 2 or 3 fan busses drove 90 minutes, they made us drive all the way there. When we arrived we couldn’t even get off the bus before someone representing ED came and said they decided to postpone the game.

Tarboro came back the next night and steamrolled ED and went on to win our 3rd state championship in a row.

 

[wncbowhunter]

Hmmm, back in 2010 Avery beat Mitchell in the regular season. The 2 met up in the 3rd round in Newland, Mitchell won by 25 points. It was about 3 degrees and breezy that night. I remember a football got popped because it was so cold. Averys Alex Villanueva threw a bullet about 8 yards, and when it hit the receivers hand, it popped.
The next weekend Mitchell travelled to Albemarle. About half their players had full beards and tattoos lol. I'm pretty sure the NCHSAA was checking birth certificates pregame lol.

Other than getting the win there was nothing fun about that night. Still question myself as why I was there. Maybe I’m just weaker now.

Go Mountaineers

 

[RudeBoyyyz]

I've heard some crazy stories in my life about playoff road games. Probably the best one I've heard is an opposing team ran the sprinklers on the field all night the night before in order to slow them down. Several players were injured playing on grass their coaches felt was unsafe. I can't verify that story, but it sure was interesting. I was curious what some of your first hand stories are playing in or attending road in the playoffs.

Back n 09 when we played East Bladen my junior year they did it w/ rain to slow down our run game. Didn’t work & we had to play against one of the officials who turned out to be an alum for them. Our fans were getting irate at the bad calls that were being called & the police threatened to remove them from the game if they didn’t calm down

 

[vikandpiratepride]

Ths rude Boyz, First half of that game was one of the worse called games I had ever seen.

 

[PisgahCatamount07]

I will always remember the most miserable game I ever played in (even though we won 36-8)... 2005 2nd round playoff game @ Forbush. It was so cold that they had to keep rotating me ziploc bags sealed full of hot coffee to put inside my hand warming pouch because my fingers kept going numb and I couldn't feel the ball.

 

[Old Mountaineer]

I don't remember right now anything crazy at one. I have froze my butt off at some like when me and my brothers going to watch I believe in 1987 Murphy at Swain, cold as crap and seeing Carl Pickens catching a ball in front of us and thinking this kid is going far. I did remind my cousin at a family reunion a couple weeks ago who played at East Surry while he telling how good they are this year that he still owes me $10 from when Mitchell beat ES 27-0 in 1986 lol.

 

[Mitchell county mountie]

Other than getting the win there was nothing fun about that night. Still question myself as why I was there. Maybe I’m just weaker now.

Go Mountaineers

It was bitter cold. I had an 84 chevy at the time, and it had no heat. Me and my cousin went to family dollar and bought some sterno's to put on the dash, just so it could defrost enough to see lol.

 

[ThePolkNation]

Heard back in day west Columbus went to play Avery . It was 10 degrees . They turned heat up in west Columbus locker room and when they came out they wanted no part of the cold . Avery blew them out lol

 

[TD-FridayNight]

I can remember around 1972 Mount Airy was 3A and had to travel to Tuscola up the mountains in Waynesville. It was the coldest football game I can remember. I don't remember what round it was, all I remember was how cold it was and the guy called Pig Bryant. The field had several low spots with water in them and they were iced over. Tuscola had a running back they called Pig Bryant. I don't know if his uniform was wet and frozen but he was as slippery as a pig that night because when you thought Mount Airy had him down he would somehow slip through a pile of Bears a strick down the field for a TD. The bleachers were like setting on a block of ice and we had heavy coat and quilts over that and still were freezing cold. Pig Bryant and that freezing night have stuck in my mind since about 1972, may have been 1971 or 1973. And if you were wondering, Mount Airy lost and I don't remember the score and I don't remember it being a blowout.

 

[Finish Strong2]

My favorite one has to be when Tarboro played Kannopolis Brown for the 3A state championship back in the 80’s. Heard that Kannapolis had about 100 players walk down with their band onto the field and When Tarboro came out with its 30 some players someone asked one of the assistant coaches is that all y’all got and the coach replied that’s all we need. Kannapolis was ranked nationally in the country and didn’t even get a first down in that game and Tarboro rolled to a victory

 

[vikandpiratepride]

has To be one of the best defensive performances ever in a title game

 

[mbdfan_rivals121259]

I can remember around 1972 Mount Airy was 3A and had to travel to Tuscola up the mountains in Waynesville. It was the coldest football game I can remember. I don't remember what round it was, all I remember was how cold it was and the guy called Pig Bryant. The field had several low spots with water in them and they were iced over. Tuscola had a running back they called Pig Bryant. I don't know if his uniform was wet and frozen but he was as slippery as a pig that night because when you thought Mount Airy had him down he would somehow slip through a pile of Bears a strick down the field for a TD. The bleachers were like setting on a block of ice and we had heavy coat and quilts over that and still were freezing cold. Pig Bryant and that freezing night have stuck in my mind since about 1972, may have been 1971 or 1973. And if you were wondering, Mount Airy lost and I don't remember the score and I don't remember it being a blowout.

TD that was Pig Bryson, he's considered one of Tuscola's best ever players. His son Shawn Bryson played at Franklin in the early 90's and later in the NFL for the Buffalo Bills and Detroit Lions

 

[Thunder_struck8712]

My favorite one has to be when Tarboro played Kannopolis Brown for the 3A state championship back in the 80’s. Heard that Kannapolis had about 100 players walk down with their band onto the field and When Tarboro came out with its 30 some players someone asked one of the assistant coaches is that all y’all got and the coach replied that’s all we need. Kannapolis was ranked nationally in the country and didn’t even get a first down in that game and Tarboro rolled to a victory

Stories like that give a man chills.

 

[TVILLEDAWG2370]

Thomasville @ Robbinsville 1999 playoffs Me and a friend went to that game and as we're going through the smokeys I thought I was looking up at the stars in the sky come to find out they were actually houses way way up in those mountains...and it was cold as heck,the kind of cold that gets down in your bones cold,my friend was trying his best to smoke that cigarette funniest thing I seen...he was shaking like a leaf on a tree...

 

[TD-FridayNight]

TD that was in all likelihood Pig Bryson, his son Shawn Bryson played at Franklin in the early 90's and later in the NFL for the Buffalo Bills and Detroit Lions

That sound like it is right, Bryson not Bryant. It's been a long time but I was close and hoping someone would remember. LOL

 

[mbdfan_rivals121259]

That sound like it is right, Bryson not Bryant. It's been a long time but I was close and hoping someone would remember. LOL

Pig Bryson well before my time but heard stories about him

 

[ocdavis31]

Thomasville @ Robbinsville 1999 playoffs Me and a friend went to that game and as we're going through the smokeys I thought I was looking up at the stars in the sky come to find out they were actually houses way way up in those mountains...and it was cold as heck,the kind of cold that gets down in your bones cold,my friend was trying his best to smoke that cigarette funniest thing I seen...he was shaking like a leaf on a tree...

My most memorable game too. And, heck yeah, it was cold, We were 11-1 going into the game and expecting a win.
My wife and I decided we’d bunk down at a remote campground after the game. Sleeping in the back of our SUV. We left early enough to go by the campground and scope it out before the game. Even though it was winter, we were a little surprised that no one else was there, and pleased that we had the place to ourselves. But we did notice that the smell of a campfire was in the air and assumed someone had just left.
We took a whipping in the game and made our way back to the campground. We were pretty prepared, but still slept little due to the cold. We were ready to get out of there early the next morning and head home. But we weren’t prepared for the park ranger who came by at dawn, just as we woke up.
Apparently, there was a forest fire just over the next ridge, and they had evacuated the campground the day before. Goes to show you that there can be worse things than losing a high school football game. And that sometimes, where there’s smoke, there really is fire! And that the good Lord looks after children and fools.

 

[FarWestNorthCarolinaSports]

Bryson is also Rabun Gaps coach uf I'm not mistaken

 

[HowerinJr]

My favorite one has to be when Tarboro played Kannopolis Brown for the 3A state championship back in the 80’s. Heard that Kannapolis had about 100 players walk down with their band onto the field and When Tarboro came out with its 30 some players someone asked one of the assistant coaches is that all y’all got and the coach replied that’s all we need. Kannapolis was ranked nationally in the country and didn’t even get a first down in that game and Tarboro rolled to a victory

1984, my sophomore year. Great season! They did walk the Varsity and JV out that night. You can only put 11 guys on the field at a time though.

EDIT: Sidebar to holding Kannapolis to no first downs, I seem to remember someone saying the Viking coaches discovered a tip off to which direction Kannapolis would run. If the fullback was in a 3-point stance with right hand down, they were running right and vice versa. I don't even think the Kannapolis coaches ever figured out what was happening. Its not like they would teach a guy to switch his hands like that. For the record, I can't vouch than any of that is true. It's become legend at this point and legends are often open to embellishment. I'll say this, if its true, God love our coaching staff. Brilliant scouting!

 

[EagleJoe#2]

In reference to the 2009, Reidsville and SW Edgecombe game. I attended that game. It was on a Saturday because the field was too wet to play Friday. One thing that is forgotten is that SW Edgecombe's field does not have a crown. Or if it did back then, it was barely noticeable. As a result, the water had no place to go so it just sat there all week while it rained off and on.

Reidsville was winning by 2 TDs and had to hold on and block a field goal to win.

 

[HowerinJr]

In reference to the 2009, Reidsville and SW Edgecombe game. I attended that game. It was on a Saturday because the field was too wet to play Friday. One thing that is forgotten is that SW Edgecombe's field does not have a crown. Or if it did back then, it was barely noticeable. As a result, the water had no place to go so it just sat there all week while it rained off and on.

Reidsville was winning by 2 TDs and had to hold on and block a field goal to win.

The football field at SWE is in a ravine. There is a swamp area located beyond the fence on the visitor side stands. Water runs in three directions toward the field and eventually off into the swamp. A crown would certainly help, but storm water runoff to the swamp would be altered significantly. I would imagine an environmental impact study would be mandatory which ends up costing more money than its worth.

 

[swe98]

I used to work in Greenboro a few years back, and once this particular person found out I was from SWE, the first thing he brought up was us watering the field. Smh. I think they were just shocked that someone could hang with them that year. They led 14-0 in the first, tied at 14 at the half, went up 22-14 in the third, led 22-20 in the fourth, and needed us to miss a 20 yard fg with 1sec left to win the game. Back then, we didn't kick, so this was our first fg attempt of the season. Of course it didn't go well lol. Fumbled the hold and had to take off with it. Tackled at the 2. It was a classic game.

 

[Mhsneer]

In I think 93. I watched what I believe to be the best Owen high football team I’ve ever seen against maiden in Swannanoa at the old field. There was so many people they were lined up around the fence three or four deep. Antoine Ikard was the maiden running back. He ran around, over and through the best Owen defense I’ve ever seen. I don’t know what happened to him, but he was one of the best tailbacks I’ve seen

 

[Eastcoastman1957]

2009 West Columbus went to My. Airy for 2 round. They were #1 in state coach cut all the heat off in West locker room. It was cold. They had it nice and warm in theirs. Would not let radio from WC in press box. Put them on a scissor lift attached to damn trailor. WC lost 52---26 I believe. Bareman I know you remember this.
Bare was doing radio for My. Airy.