By Mac Heffner
The Mount Airy News
mheffner@mtairynews.com

North Surry football coach Mitch Martin said it never seems to fail that weather forcasters paint a different weekend outlook when a big festival is being held like Mount Airy's "Mayberry Days" instead of predicting what most of Surry County got Friday.

After steady rains soaked Surry County Friday night, football games of interest involving county teams -- Surry Central (0-5) at North Surry (0-5), Alleghany (2-2) at East Surry (5-0) and Elkin (4-1) at West Wilkes (1-3) -- were postponed until Monday night at 7 p.m.

"It seems like every time something big is going on in this area with festivals and things, they never give you a gloomy forecast even when they can see it coming on the radar," Martin said. "There's a big storm around South Carolina and it's going to head this way and we are going to get soaked up here. We just decided to play Monday and they are open next week so it helps them there."

Martin said Saturday was an option, but that the radar showed the potential for even more rain. Showers lingered until early afternoon but eventually moved off, creating muggy and even foggy conditions in some places.

The decision didn't bother Surry Central coach Monty Southern.

"That's what North Surry wanted to do and I didn't really even talk to anybody," Southern said. "They called early and said they wanted to go Monday. If both don't want to play Saturday, you go on Monday. We are open next week so it doesn't bother us and I'd rather play on a school night. It's not bad for us at all."

Southern also said playing Saturday might have been a bad idea.

"I know it might rain, so it'd probably be a wet field Saturday night," Southern said.

The game is the Mountain Valley 2-A Conference opener for both teams. North Wilkes and Wilkes Central played their game Friday, as did East Wilkes and Bishop McGuinness. Starmount and Forbush moved their game to Saturday. The field was wet but held up well.

Elkin also has the luxury of an open week this coming Friday, so moving the contest to tonight wasn't that big of an issue. West Wilkes is coming off a bye week and will visit East Wilkes this Friday.

Coach David Diamont of East Surry said his players were going to miss a day of sprints at practice with the Monday night game

"I think the kids look at it like this, that means one less day that I make them run sprints," Diamont said. "Playing games is fun. If I'm a young kid, as long as I'm healthy I'm happy about it."

East Surry will travel to Mount Airy (5-0) Friday night for what should be a matchup of unbeaten teams.

The winner should have the inside track in the race to win the Northwest 1A Conference title.

The Granite Bears had an open date last night, and are ranked No. 2 in the Associated Press Class 1A football poll.