We’re in an odd position for this week’s installment of Game Balls.
We have to make it a bit of a preview, in addition to being a review. And, folks, we have to preview the area’s biggest game of the season in something akin to a day’s notice.
Late Sunday afternoon, word came down that the annual Peace River Rivalry game — originally scheduled for Oct. 18, then moved to Nov. 7 — had been rescheduled for Election Night. The move was necessary due to the impending threat of Raphael, the latest tropical scourge that spun up in the deep Caribbean and punched in directions for our little neck of the woods.
So here we are, condensing 40-plus years of Peace River conflagrations into a few paragraphs of our little weekly experiment. Here are the deets heading into Tuesday’s 7:30 p.m. kickoff at Harbor Nissan Stadium in Port Charlotte:
Charlotte holds a 35-7 series advantage.
Port Charlotte mauled Charlotte 44-0 in Punta Gorda in last year’s meeting. It was the largest margin of victory for the Pirates in series history.