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| Burying the Hatchet, Hurricane’s Derrick Tucker and South Charleston’s Tyler Harris are on the same team this Saturday in the North-South All-Star Game after the last encounter between their teams ended in a brawl. |
The last time members of the South Charleston and Hurricane football teams shared the field at the University of Charleston Stadium it resulted in one of the ugliest incidents in West Virginia high school sports history.
"The beef between us and South Charleston is gone," said Derek Tucker a graduated senior from Hurricane High School. "On the first day here, the South Charleston players came up to the Hurricane players and they asked us for a Hurricane sticker. We handed it to them gladly and we got a South Charleston sticker.
"We buried the hatchet," Tucker said.
Tucker, Hurricane quarterback Tyler Pate and center/linebacker Jonathan Horn are in Charleston for a week long training camp leading up to Saturday’s annual North-South All-Star Football Classic. South Charleston quarterback/defensive back Tyler Harris and Davonte Edwards of the Black Eagles will be their teammates this week. South Charleston receiver Pierria Henry was also invited to the game but did not report to camp last weekend.
The game will be played Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. at U-C Stadium.
"We sat down and talked on the first day," Harris said of the meeting between South Charleston and Hurricane players. "We told each other we were sorry and we exchanged the stickers. Then we moved on from there.
"(Monday) night I hung out with Horn and Tucker and we stayed up most of the night," Harris said. "We were just laughing and having a good time really getting to know one another. It’s all just been a good time."
South Charleston won the quarterfinal round playoff game over Hurricane 30-26 last November. it was a classic football game marred by a brawl at the end that forced the officials to call the game before the final seconds were played. South Charleston advanced to the semifinals where it beat Brooke. But that victory was later forfeited as it was ruled that South Charleston had ineligible players, players who were ejected from the Hurricane game following the fight. The ensuing court battled forced the West Virginia Secondary School Athletic Commission to take the unprecedented step to postpone the Class-AAA state championship game by one week. Martinsburg eventually defeated Brooke in that championship game to claim the title.
The players have chosen to put that drama in the past.
"We’ve played against all of these guys for the past four years," said Pate during media day for the North-South game on Tuesday. "The South Charleston guys have become some of my best friends in just a few days that we’ve been here.
"Not only those guys," pate said. "But all of the players on this South team that I’ve gone against over the past few years."
"It’s all cool," Horn added. "I love playing with the (South Charleston) guys. I feel like I’ve known them forever and they are really good guys to be around."