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From the Charlotte Observor 8/22/01
challenges await gridiron gladiators 
Realignment will test 5 football programs
 Iredell high schools face tougher opponents this season with power shift  

From the Charlotte Observor 8/22/01
challenges await gridiron gladiators 
Realignment will test 5 football programs
 Iredell high schools face tougher opponents this season with power shift  

 By REID SPENCER 
Special Correspondent  

Whatever else you can say about the high school conference realignment in North Carolina every four years, life just became more difficult for the five schools in Iredell County. 

Mooresville, Statesville and North Iredell are members of the new North Piedmont 3A Conference, and their road to the state playoffs is exponentially tougher. 

  The North Piedmont is a seven-team league that includes a handful of perennial playoff contenders. Kannapolis A.L. Brown won the 3A state championship twoyears ago. Northwest Cabarrus went to the playoffs last season and battled Mooresville to the final play of the game during the regular season.  

West Rowan and East Rowan both have had recent success in the postseason, and Mooresville and Statesville are fixtures in the playoffs. The problem is that, in this game of musical chairs, only two playoff spots are available to the conference this year. 

"We went from a conference we thought we could compete in (the Western Foothills 3A) to one that I think might be the strongest in the state," North Iredell coach Robert Morrison said ruefully. "We'll enter our new conference playing with a lot of young kids against some teams that have a lot of returning starters."  

One bonus of the new alignment is the renewal of the rivalry between Mooresville and Statesville. The teams haven't played each other since the mid-1980s, but they meet in the last game of the season this year with a possible playoff spot on the line.  

"In the 13years I've been here, we've never played them," said Mooresville coach Mike Carter. "But the only team I'm worried about right now is Mooresville. I can't control what happens with any of the other teams in our league." 

Statesville has been picked to finish fourth in the new league this season, but the Greyhounds have the talent and experience to exceed those expectations.  

Whatever the case, when the regular season ends Nov.9, several North Piedmont teams accustomed to competing in the postseason will be staying home this year. Though not in the same conference, West Iredell and South Iredell face a common challenge - trying to stretch their travel budgets to accommodate their new leagues.  

West lost many of its traditional rivalries - with Bandys, Bunker Hill and Newton-Conover, for example - when the Southern District 72A gave way to the Midwest 2A Conference, a league that doesn't include the Warriors. Instead, West Iredell must travel to the east to compete in the Central Carolina Conference against the likes of North Rowan, Salisbury, West Stokes, Ledford, Central Davidson, East Davidson and Lexington.  

Can you say "road trip?"  

"Realignment has dealt us some excessive travel," said Warriors coach Mark Weycker. "We're coming out of one of the premier conferences in the state in the SD 7 to go to this new league. We haven't competed against any of these teams."  

Likewise, South Iredell must deal with its own newfound eastern orientation. The Vikings have moved up in classification and now are part of the new Central Piedmont 4A Conference. South must compete against Davie County (a projected powerhouse this season), North Davidson, Winston-Salem Reynolds, South Rowan and West Forsyth.  

Not only will the new league involve extensive travel, but it also might have a negative effect on the Vikings' football revenues, given the distance visiting fans must drive to Troutman. It's about 55miles from Winston-Salem, for instance.  

"But we're looking forward to competing," said South Iredell coach Kent Millsaps. "It looks like a tough conference overall, particularly with Davie in it. They always have tough teams."  

Devils hoping just to survive scrimmage Written by Larry Sullivan

Provided by on Tuesday, August 28, 2001

Suddenly, the preseason scrimmage season has evolved into a battle of survival for Mooresville's football team.

"Man,'' sighed Mike Carter, just under two weeks shy of officially kicking off his 13th season as the Blue Devils' head coach, "we're hurting. We got banged up, beat up and bruised pretty good at our last scrimmage. We're not sure who can go and for how long right now. We're just going to wait and see.''

That waiting and seeing comes to a head when the Devils, coming off a school record-setting season and rewarded for that by being penned as the number 14th-ranked entry in last weekend's initial Sweet 16 area high school football poll of the season, host their only scrimmage this week.

Mooresville, with a pair of scrimmages within the past week under its helmet, closes out that segment of the season with its only at-home appearance when hosting Thomasville Ledford Thursday night.

"We've had three scrimmages over the past several years,'' revealed Carter, "but we haven't been hurt like we are right now. I still think, for the most part, we'll be okay. We' already taken some big hits, but the kids are getting used to getting and taking them.''

The third and final preseason scrimmage will get underway in the Mooresville Stadium beginning at 7 p.m. There will be a $2 per-person admission fee charged.

The scrimmage will last around two hours. During the first hour, the junior varsity and varsity teams will be in action at the same time at opposite ends of the stadium field. Over the final hour, varsity action only will dominate. Most of that, according to Carter, will be under true game-like conditions.