Worth the wait: Southern Nash, Rocky Mount ready for unbeaten battle

BAILEY — Way back in August, while doing a question-and-answer with Southern Nash’s Zonovan Knight, Rocky Mount High’s Shyheim Battle made a bold prediction for this upcoming season.

Whose going to win the Big East?

“I’m pretty confident in my team,” Battle said. “Other than us two in the conference though, I don’t think there’s nobody else there.”

The cornerback was speaking of his Rocky Mount High Gryphons and Knight’s Southern Nash Firebirds.

“I’m going to go ahead and agree with that,” Knight said.

Two months later, the belief in their respective teams has proven tenable; neither 3-A program has lost a game.

That will change for one side on Thursday night, when Southern Nash (6-0, 2-0) hosts Rocky Mount High (7-0, 3-0) at 7 p.m. Both bragging rights and an edge toward winning the conference will be on the line.

Of course, this game won’t decide the fate of either team’s 2018 season.

That’s something coach Brian Foster — whose Firebirds beat the Gryphons in the 2016 regular season, but lost to them in the playoffs later that year — was quick to point out on Wednesday, but it does have the look and feel of an important, exciting game.

What they’re saying

Foster, on that win in 2016: “Well, when we beat them two years ago, we were on top of the world. I tried to tell our guys — just because we won a conference championship doesn’t mean anything for the state, and we lost to them in the second round, and that ended up being the truth. We want to win, you know that, but our ultimate goal is to win the state championship and we still ain’t done that.”

Quinton Cooley, Zonovan Knight’s running mate, on Knight, who needs 179 yards to break the school record:“He talks about it all the time. He’s always saying, ‘I need this, I need that to get to the record. I’m close to it, I’m going to beat it.’ He’s very excited about the record.”

Foster, on his most memorable matchup with Rocky Mount: “Probably the one where I fell out. I fell face down first, passed out. I think that was memorable just because Zack (Foster) stayed and played. He didn’t know what was going on.”

Indeed, in a 2014 game that the Firebirds won, Foster passed out on the sideline and spent the night in the hospital.

Brian Batchelor, Southern Nash’s offensive coordinator, on that 2014 game: “The next year Jason (Battle) was joking with us. He said, ‘Look now, Brian fell out and them boys got motivated.’ I had already told (Brian) Foster, ‘If things get tight tomorrow, you might need to take a dive.’”

Jason Battle, Rocky Mount High coach, on the matchup — “We’re well aware of the situation and the implications that it has for the rest of our season, the thing we’re trying to do is just be normal. There’s been times before where in these situations you get so uptight that you don’t play, so it’s really trying to be as normal as we can.”

Battle, on Knight — “He’s a different kind of running back, you don’t see those kids all the time with the speed and elusiveness that he has, and he runs with power, too. He a long, lanky kid, man, you don’t want to see but one of them a year.”

Carrington Garrett, Rocky Mount High offensive lineman, on playing in a big game — “We’re trying to treat it like any game. You got to approach it as a regular game, stay on your everyday thing. You don’t automatically treat it like a big game, but at the same time you know what the stakes are but you can’t inflate it in your head.”