ELIZABETHTOWN — Second place and an automatic bid to the state 2-A playoffs is on the line Friday night when East Bladen visits Clinton in the last game of the high school football regular season.
The familiar foes of the Southeastern Athletic Conference have each been beaten by St. Pauls, and the Eagles also tote a loss to the Fairmont Golden Tornadoes. Win tonight, and East Bladen holds the head-to-head tie-breaker for teams that would each finish 4-2 in the SAC-7.
Clinton is 6-2 overall, East Bladen is 4-5.
West Bladen completed its season last week. All teams learn their postseason fates on Saturday when the N.C. High School Athletic Association releases the 64-team bracket.
Unlike recent years, there is no subdividing in classifications this year. Thus, all 2-A schools from the largest to the smallest — a range of about 1,000 students in the largest, about 550 for schools the size of East Bladen that are the smallest — will compete to win six straight games and be called 2-A state champion.
While only two bids from the SAC-7 are automatic, a number of teams are expected to land wild card positions. The NCHSAA seeds first according to league champs; the second-place finishers and wild cards are grouped together and seeded by a ratings percentage index that calculates a team’s winning percentage, its opponents’ winning percentage, and the winning percentage of its opponents’ opponents.
The Dark Horses and Eagles have had periods of sharing the same league, and sharing the same playoff turf. They last met in the regular season as nonconference opponents in 2019, with Clinton prevailing 43-16 in Dark Horse Stadium. East Bladen won their last postseason meeting, 14-7, in the 2013 first round when Robby Priest was in his second season as head coach.
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