Bryson City – The 1st round of the NCHSAA playoffs in any sport is always tricky. For some teams they are just happy to be there, those tend not to stay long. Some teams look ahead and dream about State Championships, they get tripped up or upset. But for the Maroon Devils, it has always been about the process. Play the team right in front of you, you have no control over the other games, is a message that has been delivered for 39 years.
For Swain it doesn’t matter if it was Deitz, White, Pattillo, or Blankenship, the message is always the same. Take care of what is right in front of you and the rest will take care of itself.
It must be a message that works. Perhaps no team in the state has taken care of business in the 1st round quite the way the Maroon Devils have over the years. Going into Friday night the Devils are an unbelievable 37-2 in 1st round games, that translates into an amazing 95% win rate. To put it bluntly the Maroon Devils own the 1st round of the NCHSAA Playoffs, and it really hasn’t mattered what the current configuration of the playoffs are either.
Those two first round losses you ask? Well the first one was 1992 as Rosman took a 26-20 win in the 1st round after the Maroon Devils had downed the Tigers 6-3 in the regular season.
The second loss, should give Maroon Devil fans pause, because it came against the very same team Swain hosts this Friday. In 2006 the Ironmen handed Swain a 21-0 loss to end their season in the 1st round, marking only the 2nd time the Maroon Devils took a 1st round exit from the playoffs.
It is worth pointing out as an aside to yesterday’s article, Maroon Devils Are Magical in The Playoffs, that the Maroon Devils have never lost a home first round playoff game.
Rest assured that streak and record is OURS, as in the Swain faithful or Maroon Nation. This year’s edition of the Devils will step into their place in history, starting tomorrow night, but the fans, well they are the ones who have been there all along. The one constant in this dizzying array of numbers, is that the Maroon Devil faithful show up and show out.
The 2017 edition of the Maroon Devils will take the field tomorrow intent on living out this history, and doing everything they can to extend it and take 1st round win #39.
It is up to you to validate that effort with your cheers and support.