It’s All-Star Saturday for Carolina high school football players. Here’s what to expect
Nearly 300 North Carolina high school football players will get their day in the sun Saturday, participating in any of four all-star games scheduled across the Carolinas.
The third Saturday of December has turned into All-Star Saturday for high school football, with these contests:
Queen City Senior Bowl: It’s the East vs. the West, with a 1 p.m. kickoff at Olympic High. This game features top Charlotte-area players from Mecklenburg, Union, Cabarrus, Iredell, Lincoln, Gaston and Cleveland counties.
Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas: The 87th renewal of this game, said to be the oldest high school all-star game in the country, is set for 1 p.m. at Spartanburg High School. The rosters include 11 Charlotte-area players on the North Carolina team, and four on the South Carolina squad.
N.C. Coaches East-West All-Star Game: This contest was held in July for decades, but has been moved to December. It was scheduled for Sunday but was moved up a day due to a storm expected to blow across the state Sunday. Kickoff will be at 1 p.m. at Grimsley High in Greensboro.
919 vs. 252 Showcase Game: This is eastern North Carolina’s version of Charlotte’s Senior Bowl, with top players from the 919 area code district facing their counterparts from the 252 area code. Kickoff for this fourth annual game will be at 2 p.m. at John Paul II Catholic High in Greenville.
The busy schedule will tax college coaches, who use the all-star games as a way of finding promising players who haven’t already made a college decision.
A quick look at the games:
Queen City Senior Bowl
Players from 53 schools will be represented in this fifth annual game.
Quarterbacks for the East will be Kaden Kline of Central Cabarrus and Brady Turriff of Sun Valley. The West’s quarterbacks will be Trenton Sherrill of East Gaston and Wendell Thompson of Myers Park.
Proceeds from the game are donated to the Metro School in Charlotte, and while many of the players already have college scholarships lined up, the Senior Bowl also serves as a chance for other players to catch the eye of college coaches.
Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas
This is the 87th Shrine Bowl, and the game has raised more than $75 million over the years for the Shriner’s hospitals for children.
The first Shrine Bowl was played Dec. 4, 1937, at Charlotte’s American Legion Memorial Stadium, and it was moved in 2004 to Spartanburg.
Among Charlotte-area players in the game are Marvin Ridge’s Evan Medders, who will be one of North Carolina’s quarterbacks; and record-setting kicker Nolan Houser, a Clemson commit from Hough.
The South Carolina team includes Northwestern’s Hanovil “Turbo” Richard, who has rushed for more than 4,300 yards in his career.
Coaches’ East-West Game
Seven Charlotte-area players have been picked for the West team in this game: running back C.J. Ferguson (West Iredell); linebackers Jaquavion Smith (Forest Hills), Noah Comer (Forestview) and Caleb Edstrom (Mooresville); linemen John Armstrong (South Point) and Colt Kluttz (Mount Pleasant); and kicker Charlie Birtwistle (South Point).
In addition, South Point’s Adam Hodge is an assistant coach for the West.
Head coaches are Butch Carter (Alexander Central) for the West and Bill Sochovka (Pine Forest) for the East.
The game was moved from July to December so that more players could participate. In recent years, a number of players opted out, because they already had reported to college summer camps.
