Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Gaston, Lincoln and Cleveland, Best To Last

  1. Shelby (2-0) Shelby looks like the best all around team in all three counties. They will be tested by South Point. But it looks like the South Mountain Athletic conference will be theirs to take this year.
  2. Kings Mountain (2-0) Kings Mountain looks like they will challenge Shelby and overtake Crest as the top 3A team in their league. They could get tested by Forestview this Friday.
  3. Lincolnton (2-0) Lincolnton escaped South Point 25-24 in overtime. Lincolnton is favored to take their conference.
  4. South Point (1-1) South Point took a hard loss to Lincolnton last week. They have a bigger test against Shelby. Don’t count South Point out. They could take that #1 spot from Shelby. A loss will not knock them too far down if at all.
  5. Crest (1-1) Crest has had a rocky start. They were beaten handily by South Point 27-12 and barely got past a young Ashbrook team. They are #5 by default right now. They have a bye week so they are not going anywhere.
  6. East Lincoln (2-0) They struggled with Hunter Huss in week one before squeaking out a 14-13 win. Beating a first-year program like Christ the King doesnt tell us much. They play North Lincoln next whom they should beat handily.
  7. Burns (2-0) Burns blew out their first opponent 51-12, but had a hard time pulling away from Hunter Huss last week in a 31-26 battle. A win over Central Cabarrus won’t move them too far up as the Vikings struggled last week.
  8. Forestview (1-1) Forestview started off with a 27-6 victory at Providence Day. The Jaguars fought hard against a physical Clover team but fell 19-13, if they can give a powerful Kings Mountain team a run for their money they could move up.
  9. Bessemer City (2-0) Bessemer City has been a little bit of a surprise so far this year with a convincing 44-20 win over East Gaston. They had a defensive struggle against a much improved Mountain Island Charter team but prevailed 16-0.
  10. Hunter Huss (0-2) Hunter Huss came close to sniffing a win these past two games but havent been able to pull it off. They were up 13-0 on East Lincoln before losing 14-13. They were also in a dogfight with Burns. Being winless is what is putting them at #10, but being competitive is why they aren’t ranked lower.
  11. Ashbrook (0-2) Ashbrook is a hard team to figure out right now. First week, they surrender 41 first half points against Clover in a 48-13 rout. Then they only lose to Crest 14-7 but as mentioned earlier, Crest is struggling this year. Ashbrook also has their bye week this week.
  12. Thomas Jefferson (1-0) Thomas Jefferson opened up the season with a 56-0 win over Hickory Grove Christian. The Gryphons will have a harder time with the team I ranked just below them this week.
  13. Mountain Island Charter (1-1) Mountain Island Charter has made great strides from last year. They opened up with a 35-9 win over Central Academy and they gave Bessemer City a game last week before losing 16-0. If they can beat Thomas Jefferson Academy, that would be huge.
  14. Stuart Cramer (1-1) Cramer beat Cherrvyille 20-6 to open their season up. They also had a defensive struggle with R-S Central last week. Cramer is another team that’s hard for me to figure out, but only beating Cherryville 20-6 does not instill a lot of confidence.
  15. West Lincoln (1-1) - They lost to a less than mediocre Draughn team at the start of the season 27-14, then beat North Lincoln 39-20. They typically don't fare well in their conference.
  16. East Gaston (0-2) - Talk about a rough start. East Gaston sure has had that with blowout losses to Bessemer City (44-20) and Kings Mountain (56-7). Good thing the Warriors have a bye week this week.
  17. North Gaston (0-2) - North Gaston also had a tough go at it. They were blown out by Kings Mountain 54-10. They lost to East Rutherford, but only by 27-14. This week, they travel to face a hot Lincolnton team. This could be another lopsided one.
  18. North Lincoln (0-2) - Just like the previous two, the struggles have been real for North Lincoln. The Knights suffered losses to Lincolnton (63-7) and West Lincoln (39-20) and are likely to have another one when their final county rival, East Lincoln, comes to visit.
  19. Cherryville (0-2) - Nowhere to go but up. Cherryville lost 20-6 to Stuart Cramer to open the season but was blown out by Chase the following week 33-6. Last year, Highland Tech was their only win. That could be the case this year as well.
  20. Highland Tech (0-2) - The Rams suffer two ugly shutout losses to start the year off. The first was a 73-0 drubbing by Newton-Conover. The second was a 49-0 shutout to Central Academy. The Rams have not won a game since 2013.

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