Blue Devils finish fourth in South Fork 2A,
have now won at least 8 games in 42 seasons
HobbsDailyReport.com
MAIDEN – Quarterback Bain Sipe hit Dylan Abernathy for the only touchdowns on Wednesday night – their seventh and eighth hookups of the season – as Maiden High nipped visiting Lincolnton 13-0 to close the regular season in South Fork 2A football.
Sipe threw a 3-yard pass in the first quarter and a 75-yard pass in the third quarter to Abernathy for TDs, and Casey Ly hit a PAT after the second score with eight minutes, 42 seconds left to play in the third quarter.
By winning, the Blue Devils improved to 8-3 overall and they finished fourth in the conference behind Bandys, North Lincoln and West Lincoln.
Maiden — which will reach the postseason for the 23rd straight season and 32nd time in 34 years – will learn about its first-round state playoff bid on Saturday when the North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) develops the brackets.
The playoffs were originally set to begin Friday but delayed by one week (to Nov. 16) by an extension of the regular season by the NCHSAA due to delays by hurricane-related weather.
The game on Wednesday at Thomas E. Brown Stadium was first set to be played last Friday but postponed to Monday and then reset after field conditions were still too wet.
Maiden jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the final three minutes of the opening quarter. Sipe threw 3 yards to Abernathy for a TD and the PAT failed.
The other Maiden score ame with 8:42 left in the third quarter on a pass of 75 yards from Sipe to Abernathy.
The two TD catches give Abernathy 13 for the year and eight of those were thrown by Sipe, who returned to the lineup after missing the last two games with an injury. Caleb McDaniel, who had been starting for Maiden, sat out with an injury.
Sipe compleed six of 20 attempts for 125 yards and was intercepted twice. His unofficial season totals are now 1,904 passing yards in 10 games with 16 TD passes (Abernathy has 41 catches for 420 yards).
The Maiden defense limited the Wolves (2-9, 1-6) to fewer than 65 rushing yards, and the Blue Devils outgained Lincolnton by nearly 175 yards.
BYRNE
Notes
This is the 42nd Maiden varsity football team in school history to win at least eight games … The Blue Devils have won at least eight games in seven of eight seasons and for the 19th time in 22 years …Lincolnton finishes in seventh place in the South Fork 2A and has an 18-year streak of making the state playoffs snapped (the last previous miss was in 1999)… The Wolves have finished no worse than fourth in their league every year from 2000 to 2018 – five titles, five seconds, four thirds and four fourths under to head coaches, Scott Cloninger (retired) and Ledford Gibson (33-21 after four seasons as head coach)… Maiden heads to the postseason 27-8 under Will Byrne, a former Blue Devils star receiver who took over as head coach three seasons ago.
