The Egg Bowl (MSU-Ole Miss); The Iron Bowl (Alabama-Auburn) Red River Shootout (Oklahoma-Texas), are all storied rivalries. But in Mississippi, one of the greatest rivalries has been developing between Wayne County and West Jones.
The game has become such a big deal in the Magnolia State that earlier this season it was the first high school regular season game to be televised live in CelluarSouth’s Y’all vs. Us matchups. Both teams have also been featured in the season-long Head-to-Head reality TV series that chronicled the day-to-day events of the players, coaches and their families.
The winner of tonight’s game will play either Moss Point or Picayune in next week’s 5A South State championship game.
War Eagle head coach Marcus Boyles believes the meeting of the two schools has turned into a great rivalry.
“It’s a game where communities and fans want their respective schools to win worse than some of the players,” said Boyles, whose team leads the series 9-5, but dropped a 17-7 decision last month in the regular season meeting played in Waynesboro. “It’s a big game for us both this time. The winner stays home and the loser goes to the house.”
West Jones head coach Scott Pierson knew going into the season his Mustang team had to go through Waynesboro to get to 5A title game. “You know Wayne County is a tough team,” said Pierson, whose team defeated Long Beach last week 47-21. “They’re a great team, and as a coaching staff we knew in order to get to Jackson we were going to have to play against Wayne County.”
Pierson knows taking the War Eagles down twice in the same season is going to be a difficult task. “It’s tough to beat a good team,” he said. “But when you have to play a great team like Wayne County twice in the same season ... it gets no tougher than that.”
According to Boyles, his team will have to come away with points Friday night when given the chance.
“We were down in the redzone, and I chose to go for the score,” said Boyles, referring to his decision on going for the touchdown rather the field goal on fourth down in the first meeting between the two schools. The Mustang defense kept the War Eagles out of the endzone. “It was a tough decision, but I wanted to get us more points on the board. We are going to have to put points on the board, and we will have to limit our turnovers to a minimum.”
Pierson knows this game is one of the best high school football games in the state. “There won’t be another game bigger than this one,” he said. “This is the biggest rivalry in the state of Mississippi.”
Boyles agreed with Pierson. “Both schools have a lot on the line in this game,” said Boyles, whose team routed Gautier 46-26 a week ago. “The winner will be one game closer to the state championship.”
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File Photo/James Pugh
‘The Rematch’
West Jones will try to win at Wayne County again
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