BALTIMORE — For the 136th time, Baltimore City College and Baltimore Polytechnic Institute will face off in one of high school football's longest-standing rivalries. The historic matchup is set for Saturday at noon at Morgan State University.
City enters the game riding a 13-game winning streak, including a dominant 40-0 victory over Poly last year. The Knights are led by head coach Rodney Joyner, who played in this rivalry during the 1980s and now coaches his alma mater.
"They hate us, we hate them, but it's fun," Joyner said.
"The game sparks so much pride in each other's schools," Joyner said. "I think it's a feather in the cap to Baltimore as well because City and Poly have always been historically top academic high schools and so it brings out everybody who's been associated with it whether you played football or you didn't."
For City, senior St. Matthew Evans, a left tackle and defensive end, the atmosphere of the City-Poly game is unmatched.
"I've never seen so many people at a football game in my life," Evans said. "Like alumni, so many people who just there to see so many people supporting you here screaming from the right side, from the left side, then it's like we're in the stadium, so it's people all around you, cheerleaders going back and forth, everybody yelling, everybody screaming. There's a whole bunch of referees is, is real intense. It's like something I never experienced before."
Here from City players and coaches as they speak on the significance of the game
Evans hopes to extend City's winning streak to 14 games.
"We gotta keep it going," Evans said.
On the Poly side, senior Dallas Taylor understands the weight of playing in this rivalry for the final time.
"It makes me feel like I'm a part of something like that's a lot bigger than just myself," Taylor said. "So when I go out and play, I know I'm not just playing for just myself. I'm playing for a lot of the seniors who've left and left the weight on my shoulders to try and play my hardest and do all that I can, and I'm playing for all the coaches that I played with, and I'm playing for all the alumni and all the students who are watching me and cheering out for my team."
Poly will be led by first-year head coach Jamaal Johnson, who isn't an alumnus of either school but says he understood the significance of this game when he took the job.
"We understood all year long that this is the standard of being at Poly, winning the Poly City game," Johnson said. "So it's always been at a high level of importance just with respect to the game and the rivalry overall," Johnson said. "I wanna see us win it for the school, the community, for the past alumni and the students that are there, but I kind of think of it as one game at a time and just balling."
Taylor knows what it will take for Poly to come out on top.
"It's gonna take hardship, hard work, just hard work and everybody to work together and really put everything on the field," Taylor said.
Here from Poly players and coaches as they speak on the significance of the game
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