Share
There will be no presale of tickets to the general public for Friday's N.C. 4AA semifinal between Independence and Butler. The game will be played at 6,000-seat Providence High.
Kickoff is Friday at 7:30 p.m. The Providence parking lot will open at 5 p.m. and tickets will go on sale at 5:30. Tickets cost $8 each. Varsity football players, band members (who are performing Friday) and varsity cheerleaders from both schools will be allowed to buy two tickets each in advance. No passes will be accepted except N.C. High School coaches passes.
The game was moved to Providence because Butler's home field seats only about 2,500, well short of the 4,000 required by the N.C. High School Athletic Association.
Mecklenburg County system athletics director Vicki Hamilton said there wasn't time to organize a pre-sale of tickets as the schools had before their regular-season meeting at Independence. All 4,250 tickets were sold more than 48 hours before kickoff for that game, which Butler won 31-24 on Nov. 6.
Hamilton said Providence's field seats 4,000 on the home side, which will be Butler's, and 2,000 on the visitors. She added that Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is bringing in professional parking attendants and ticket personnel as well as adding additional lighting in the parking areas. She said Providence had more parking spaces than any school in CMS and fans would also be parked on on-campus practice fields, as was the case at Independence.
"This was a joint effort between the three schools, Butler, Independence and Providence," she said. "It was neat to see 27 people (Monday) come together to plan this. We had police from Mint Hill, Matthews, CMS and CMPD, school personnel plus area superintendents. I would challenge any system in the state to pull that many people together to pull off a football game."
Butler coach Mike Newsome said linebacker Alex Polofsky, who injured his knee in Friday's quarterfinal win against East Meck, would probably play Friday.
N.C. Independent Schools state champ Charlotte Latin (No.7), North Meck (8) and N.C. 4A runner-up Ardrey Kell (14) are ranked in the MaxPreps top 25 N.C. volleyball rankings. North Iredell is 17th and Hickory 19th. West Iredell is 25th.
Mallard Creek dominated I-Meck all-conference football
Mallard Creek coach Mike Palmieiri, who led his third-year team to the I-Meck conference title, is the league coach of the year. Quarterback Marquise Williams is the offensive player of the year and linebacker D'vonte Grant is defensive player of the year.
The complete team is in Scoreboard, Page 6C.
