BRYSON CITY, WNC – Heading into the fourth week of the regular season in football the Maroon Devils are still ranked number one in most 1A polls. Swain holds the number one spot in both the MaxPreps and NCPreps 1A polls. It is familiar territory for the defending 1AA champions, who opened the season atop both polls. In the WNC Best of the West the Devils moved up one spot to 4th, and are still the highest rated 1A team in the all-inclusive poll.
Swain hosts Franklin this week in what will be another tough contest for the Devils. Currently the Devils are riding a 15 game winning streak, dating back to their only loss of the season last year at Franklin. Swain also has a 13 game home winning streak which dates back to September of 2010.
Franklin does hold the longest current winning streak over Swain. The Devils last win in the series came back in 1996 by the score of 7-0. The two teams did not play from 1997-2004. Since 2005 the Panthers have won 7 straight meetings between the two schools.
Expect a large capacity crowd for Friday’s showdown between the two teams, with kickoff set for 7:30 from Swain County Memorial Stadium. It would be a nice night for a Maroon Out.
As a side note to this post the AP, who just released their 1st poll of the year, has the Maroon Devils at #2, behind Albemarle. Andrew had a really good comment for sports writers when he posted it on his HS Huddle. You should go check it out.