Prep notebook: Apex, Apex Friendship to play for football trophy

Update: a name has been chosen – the Peak City Backyard Brawl.

Apex Friendship won’t have a varsity football team this year, but the first-year school will have a gridiron trophy to play for.

The Patriots, who are playing just a junior varsity schedule in football, and crosstown foe Apex High will play for a trophy – called the Peak City Backyard Brawl – when the two meet on Oct. 2.

Apex doesn’t have a varsity game that night, so the two agreed to play on Friday.

“It’s one of these big trophies that has the trophy on top,” said Apex athletics director Del Phillips, who came up with the idea. “We’re going to treat it just like a varsity night. We’re going to use that night to introduce our sponsors at halftime since many of them are involved with us and Apex Friendship.”

The Cougars will visit Apex Friendship next year when the two play in their first varsity football clash.

Other Triangle rivalries that involve a trophy are Wake Forest against Wakefield and Chapel Hill against East Chapel Hill. Apex and Cary sometimes play for hardware, when iHigh.com sponsors the game as part of its “Great American Rivalry” series.

“I just thought it would be something good for the community. It’ll get bigger and bigger as the years go on.”

Bull City Cup: Six Durham schools – at least one from each NCHSAA division – will compete in this year’s Bull City Cup soccer tournament: 1A Voyager Academy, 2A Durham School of the Arts and N.C. Science and Math, 3A Southern and 4A Riverside and Northern.

The tournament dates are Aug. 25, 27 and 31 at various sites with a three-game finale at Durham County Stadium on Sept. 2.

Voyager, Riverside and NCSSM are in one pool while Southern, DSA and Northern are in the other. The bottom teams of each will play in the finale at 4 p.m. followed by the third-place game at 5:30 p.m. and the championship at 7 p.m.

Midnight madness: At least three area schools will start the high school football season as quickly as possible on Aug. 1, the NCHSAA’s first day of fall sports practices.

Lee County, Southern Lee and Green Hope will hit their respective fields at 12:01 a.m. that Saturday morning.

Lee County will practice until 1 a.m. All admission is free.

Southern Lee will have concessions starting at 8 p.m.

Big 8 keeping name: Much like the Big Ten and Big 12 have done at the collegiate level, the Big 8 3A Conference is keeping its name despite changes in membership. The Big 8 has seven teams after Cardinal Gibbons moved up to the PAC-6 4A for the next two years.

PAC-6, now with seven teams also, has kept its name for decades because the “six” originally referred to the region number.

Morgan lands at Jones: Former Chapel Hill athletic director and boys basketball coach Tod Morgan has been hired at Jones County High. Morgan won three conference titles in his five-year stint in Chapel Hill, which ended in 2013.

CCSSL playoffs: The Central Carolina Scholastic League’s postseason continues Friday at Lee County High. The CCSSL features athletes from area high schools, but the summer baseball league is a separate entity like Legion or Babe Ruth baseball. The NCHSAA’s dead week rules do not apply.

Apex, Leesville Road, Bunn, Southern Lee and Orange were among those in Thursday’s quarterfinals. The semifinals and finals are slated for Friday.

N&O previews: The News & Observer’s preseason coverage kicks off Saturday. Each day leading up to the first football games on Aug. 21, a story previewing an area football team or an area fall sport will be featured in The N&O. Many more features, including video, will be online at nando.com/preps.

This story was originally published July 23, 2015 at 7:12 PM with the headline "Prep notebook: Apex, Apex Friendship to play for football trophy."