Correction: Friday’s Mount Pleasant-Maiden game was their fifth in the postseason in football… HobbsDailyReport.com regrets the error in the original story.
By CHRIS HOBBS
HobbsDailyReport.com
MAIDEN — Maiden High’s second round state 2A football playoff game at home against Mount Pleasant will be played on Friday night with kickoff moved to 8 p.m.
In a morning e-mail, Maiden athletic director Caine Houser said the schools mutually agreed to play on Friday with the start moving back a half-hour.
Because of rain on Thursday and on Friday, the schools waited to see how the Maiden field looked on Friday morning and reviewed weather forecasts that indicate the last cel of rain is expected to pass through by around 8 p.m.
Had the game been moved, the Blue Devils and Tigers had already agreed on a 7 p.m. kickoff on Saturday.
Maiden (10-1) is seeded No. 5 and reached the second round by beating No. 28 Polk County 68-33 last Friday in Maiden.
Mount Pleasant (8-3) is seeded No. 21 and advanced with a 28-12 victory over No. 12 Walkertown on the road.
This will be the 100th postseason football game in MHS history.
FRIDAY’S BROADCAST: Mount Pleasant at Maiden, 8 p.m.
The Blue Devils are making their 47th state playoff appearance and they have reached the postseason in 27 straight seasons.
Maiden plays Mount Pleasant in a postseason game for the fifth time, and the Blue Devils need a win to become the 17th MHS team with 11 or more wins in a season.
Maiden first met the Tigers in Newton-Conover’s Gurley Stadium in 1971 in the West 2A championship game (there were no state finals back then), winning 6-2.
Mount Pleasant visited Maiden in the first round in 1996, and the Blue Devils rolled 63-21.
In 2016, Mount Pleasant won a first-round game at Maiden 35-21, and the teams met in the first round in 2021 at Maiden (Blue Devils 37-29).
Unofficially, Maiden is 57-42 in state playoff games and especially effective in the old stadium and in the new stadium, both named after late head coach Tom Brown.
The Blue Devils are 39-18 in home postseason games with an opportunity to reach the third round for the 14th time; Maiden is 13-17 in its previous 30 shots at advancing to a third-round game.
Maiden has been at least three rounds deep at least once in every decade since the 1970s (1971, 1977, 1986, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2011, 2021). The late Brown guided 10 of those teams, his son Brian Brown was head coach in 2011 and Will Byrne got the Blue Devils into (and through) the third round a year ago.
The winner in Maiden on Friday advances to the third round next Friday, facing No. 13 Bunker Hill (11-1), a 41-40 winner at No. 4 Community School of Davidson on Thursday night.
Maiden would play host to Bunker Hill in the third round and Bunker Hill would be at home if Mount Pleasant beats the Blue Devils.
Maiden has a 30-game win streak over Bunker Hill in their series and beat the Bears 36-33 at Maiden earlier in the season.
Bunker Hill is in the third round for the first time since 1987 and also got that far in 1985. Those teams fell in road games to Mount Airy 37-0 and Lexington 33-8, respectively.
Watauga postpones until Saturday
Third-seeded Watauga’s second round home state playoff game is off for Friday.
The Pioneers (10-1) will face No. 14 Northwest Guilford (9-2) at 6 p.m. on Saturday in Boone.
If Watauga wins, it will advance to play No. 6 Weddington (11-1) next Friday in the third round. Weddington beat No. 11 Cox Mill 30-14 on Thursday night at Weddington.
