By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — The announcement by Salisbury High on Wednesday that the home playoff game with Maiden was being moved up to tonight was a surprise.

The weather forecast for Friday wasn’t exactly dire — a 25 to 30 percent chance of rain with reasonably pleasant temperatures — but the game has been moved.

The reasoning was that while there’s a chance of adverse weather on Friday, ideal conditions are just about a sure thing tonight.

So tonight it is.

The good news is if you’re just a general fan of Rowan County football, you can now make plans to watch both local teams that are still alive in the playoffs — Salisbury at Ludwig Stadium tonight at 7:30 p.m. and North Rowan on Friday at Eagle Stadium at 7:30 p.m.

These are second-round playoff games, and often they are a barrel of fun. They’re very competitive, but the home team usually has a happy ending.

The Massey Ratings see the two local games almost identically.

Salisbury is a 20-point favorite against Maiden, with an 82 percent win probability. North Rowan is a 21-point favorite with an 83 percent win probability against Corvian Community School.

This may be the first time you’ve ever heard of Corvian Community School, but the conference of mostly academies, charters and preps that Corvian plays in is becoming a serious factor in NCHSAA athletics. Fans no doubt have heard of Bishop McGuinness, Pine Lake Prep, Winston-Salem Prep, Mountain Island Charter and Community School of Davidson. Corvian is a Charlotte school that competes with those teams.

Doug Quarles III has 15 sacks for the Cardinals of Corvian Community.

QB AJ Jackson Jr. leads the team in passing TDs, rushing TDs and interceptions, so he’s obviously an athlete to keep an eye on.

Corvian is 6-5. Four of the losses were to winning teams. The other one was to a 2-9 Carver team. That one isn’t easy to explain.

But Corvian went on the road last week and upset Draughn (8-3), so the fourth-seeded Cavaliers (9-2) will have to be ready for a good fight.

North quarterback Jeremiah Alford and running back Jaemias Morrow are all-time guys in the North record books.

Alford only threw five passes in the easy first-round win against Elkin — North put up 42 points in the first 15 minutes — but two went for touchdowns.

A junior in his third-year as the starting QB, Alford has amassed more than 7,000 yards of total offense (rushing plus passing) for his career . He has more than 2,200 rushing yards and is closing in on 5,000 passing yards.

He has thrown 56 touchdown passes, while running for 33 TDs.

Morrow was just too fast for Elkin, piling up 268 yards and four long touchdowns despite only 15 carries.

Morrow has scored a school-record 73 touchdowns in his career. He has totaled 4,320 rushing yards and moved past West Rowan’s Wade Moore last week for the No. 8 spot on Rowan’s all-time rushing list.

Amir Alexander has emerged as a big-play receiver for the Cavaliers with nine TD catches, and Ason Best is a solid No. 2 receiver.

Linebacker Khor’on Miller anchors the North defense at inside linebacker, along with Alford.

Head coach Josh Sophia has had a strong first year in Spencer and has the Cavs on the brink of a 10-win season. Those don’t happen all that often.

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While North Rowan faces a brand new foe, Salisbury gets ready to face a Maiden program it has encountered twice in the 2A playoffs in recent years.

In the spring of 2021— the COVID-delayed 2020 season — Salisbury started a drive toward the state championship by smashing Maiden 52-22 in a first-round matchup.

Maiden’s revenge came in the third round of the playoffs in November 2021, when Maiden beat Salisbury 32-20. A number of key Salisbury seniors such as Mike Geter and Deuce Walker were part of that game as sophomores. The bottom line was Salisbury could not contain Maiden receiver Chris Culliver, who now plays for the UNC Tar Heels. That game in Maiden ended the Hornets’ 18-game winning streak and also was the last game coached at Salisbury by Brian Hinson.

Maiden is a town in Catawba and Lincoln counties. It’s a traditional power. Maiden is known as “The biggest little football town in the world.”.

The offense for the Maiden Blue Devils is driven by the passing and running of QB Josh Stover. He has 20 touchdown passes and 14 rushing TDs. Jacob Sifford had a 90-yard kickoff return TD in the first-round win against East Gaston.

Maiden is 8-3, and it’s a scary 8-3. The losses are to West Lincoln (9-2), Bunker Hill (11-0) and Watauga (11-0).

Coached by Clayton Trivett, second-seeded Salisbury (11-0) has gotten 19 sacks from Jaden Warren and eight interceptions from Bennie Howard. The Hornets’ defense allows about 7 points per game. The entire front four is pretty special.

The senior offensive duo of Geter and Walker has broken just about every school record for passing, total offense and receiving.

Geter has been running the ball more lately, whether by design or by scramble, and is a tough and elusive ball-carrier. He’s scored six rushing TDs in the last three weeks.

Geter, who committed to Army as a defensive back, now has accounted for more than 100 career touchdowns, an almost even split with 49 passing TDs and 52 rushing TDs.

Geter has more than 4,000 passing yards and more than 2,000 rushing yards for his career. He’s supplied 6,388 yards of total offense for the Hornets. He’s a four-year varsity player, but he wasn’t playing quarterback as a freshman. The Hornets still had Vance Honeycutt then.

Walker, who is headed to Georgia State, now has 107 catches for 1,794 yards and 24 touchdown receptions for his career. Those totals are all school records. He also has set several school records for a single season as a senior.

And then there’s running back Jamal Rule who had a six-TD game against North Rowan and continued a thunderous junior season with three more TDs in the first round of the playoffs last week.

Rule’s  season has included 229 carries for a school-record 2,307 yards and 31 rushing TDs. Rule also has three receiving touchdowns, so he’s only TD shy of the school record for touchdowns in a season (35) that JyMikaah Wells set in 2022.

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On a  side note, South Rowan coach Chris Walsh always finds something positive to pull out of the bleakest situations.

“Yes, we lost 64-28,” Walsh will say, “but that’s the most points we’ve scored against that team in 20 years.”

Walsh didn’t have to dig all that deep to find some positives for this year’s South offense.

Landon Richards, who played in only eight games, was South’s first 1,000-yard rusher since Thomas Lowe in 2009.

Brooks Overcash became the first South QB to throw for 1,000 yards in back-to-back seasons, and he’s got one more to go.