FRANKLIN—The Franklin High School Broncos will kick their season off at Armory Field against the Nandua High School Warriors on Friday.

The Warriors, traveling from Onley, are 1-0 to start the season, stomping Northampton High School 62-8 in the season opener this past week. This will be an out-of-division VHSL football match up with a 2A team in the Warriors facing off against the 1A Broncos.

“They have a lot of size, and they run a lot of misdirections on offense,” Head Coach Darren Parker said. “They have already accomplished one win and are coming in on a high. It is going to be our job to execute on all three phases of the game, offense, defense and special teams, and do what we do best.”

The coaching staff has been fine tuning offense, defense and special teams.

“We are not worried about what other teams are doing, we are worried about executing what we do,” he said. “On defense, we have to attack and be relentless. On offense, we have to execute. On special teams, we have to have total execution there because other teams do not spend as much time working on special teams as we do.

“We have to stay physical, stay disciplined and things should work out great. Always, God is great.”

Kickoff is at Friday at 7 p.m. in Franklin. This is Real Country 101.7 WLQM’s game of the week, and it will air starting at 6:40 p.m. on AM 1250.

Southampton

The Southampton High School Indians, coming off a week one 33-13 loss, will travel to Smithfield High School to face the Packers on Friday. Smithfield, a VHSL division 4A team, is coming off a week one 37-6 win against Surry County. Southampton is a 3A team.

“We are looking at basically a very fast Smithfield team,” Head Coach Willie Gillus said. “They are very fast, with experience on both side of the ball and very good athletes. It is going to be a tough task to try to contain them.”

Gillus said last week was a setback, and that they’d have to correct some things to beat Smithfield.

“On offense, we have got to cut down on the penalties,” he said. “A big thing for us is going to be getting our running game going this week. We’ve got to do better running the football to win this football game.”

On defense, it’s going to be cleaning up some things.

“We have to make sure we do a better job in not missing so many tackles,” he said. “We missed a lot of tackles in the box.”

Kickoff is Friday at 7 p.m. in Smithfield.

Windsor

The Windsor High School Dukes will travel this week to face the Washington and Lee High School Eagles. Both teams won their week 1 contests on Aug. 29. The Eagles edged out King George 46-44, while the Dukes defeated West Point 34-28.

“Washington and Lee is a good football team,” Head Coach Charles Parrish said. “They have size and speed.

“Offensively, they like to run the football, and defensively, they attack your offense.”

This will be an out-of-conference and out-of-division VHSL game. Washington and Lee is a 1A division squad, while Windsor is a 2A squad.

This week, Parrish said that the Dukes have to control the ball and keep the clock moving on offense, while on defense, they have to limit mistakes and do a better job tackling.

“We are going to stick to our philosophy — ball control offense and get to the ball on defense,” Parrish said. “We are excited after [last Friday’s] win and we are looking to improve on that win.”

Kickoff is Friday at 7 p.m. in Montross.

 

Isle of Wight Academy

The Isle of Wight Academy Chargers, coming off a 47-0 road win against Portsmouth Christian, will be back at home this week for its first Div. 4 VISAA Virginia Commonwealth Conference contest against the Kenston Forest Kavaliers. The Kavaliers are coming off of a 34-14 opening week loss against conference foe Fuqua School.

“We have played each other long enough to know each other’s tendencies,” Head Coach Dale Chapman said. “It is probably a deal where the team that makes the fewest mistakes, and the team that capitalizes on the other team’s mistakes, has the better shot of winning.”

Chapman said Kenston Forest is fast in the backfield and are decent size up front on both sides of the ball.

“We want to be able to speed it up and control the tempo, but also be able to slow it down if we need to,” Chapman said about his offense. “The first couple of series will dictate what we’re going to do over the course of the game.”

With the Kavs speed at running back, Chapman said the Chargers (1-1 overall) were going to have to be disciplined.

“We have to make sure we do not over-pursue them,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure we stay home, and stay solid, especially in the backside.

“Our secondary has improved a lot since Atlantic Shores. We will be ready either way, run or pass.”

Kickoff is Friday at Isle of Wight at 7 p.m.

Southampton Academy

The Southampton Academy Raiders go on the road to face off against the Community Christian Cyclones in a NCISAA Colonial Carolina 8-man football contest on Friday.

The Cyclones started off week 1 against Northeast Academy on the road and were defeated 28-20, meanwhile the Raiders defeated Lawrence Academy in Courtland 44-8.

Head Coach Dale Marks said he does not expect Community Christian to be one of the stronger teams they will face, as for the last three years they have only been able to field JV squads. This year, they are back in varsity but still rebuilding.

“They do not have a strong passing attack,” Marks said. “They will be primarily running the ball. The kid who plays tailback, he is a nice athlete, and he’ll be one we key in on.”

Marks said the Raiders will make some adjustments from last week and continue to make improvements as they get into the tougher portion of the conference schedule.

“We saw some nice things against Lawrence,” he said. “We were 7-13 throwing the ball, and we had three drops that definitely should have been catches. We ran the ball well, but we still are working on some of our blocking assignments. We had a few blown blocking assignments, which is understandable for game one.

“We are going to shore those up. And just continue to try to improve on what we do in general.”

Kickoff will be Friday at 7:30 p.m. in Wilson, North Carolina.