The high school football season officially wraps up this weekend in Chronicle Country.
   The first-ever Columbia Metro Bowl featuring All-Star players from 38 Midlands schools will be at 2 pm Saturday at W.C. Hawkins Stadium at Irmo High.
   The brainchild of Ridge View head coach Perry Parks, the game will pit a West team of Chronicle Country schools in Richland, Lexington and Newberry counties.
   They will face an East team of players from Richland, Kershaw and Fairfield counties. 
   Irmo head coach Reggie Kennedy will lead the West team.
   The S.C. High School League gave its compliance and, once a date and site was found not to conflict with the Touchstone Energy Cooperatives North-South Classic, the Metro Bowl became a go.
   In addition, the rosters will allow players not selected to either the North-South Classic and Shrine Bowl to compete. 
   Like the North-South Classic and Shrine Bowl, portions of the proceeds will go towards a charitable cause. In this case, Palmetto Children’s Hospital will be the recipient. 
BSN Sports will provide the uniforms and coaches apparel for the game. Kennedy’s staff will include Erik Kimrey (Hammond); Robert Stogner (Chapin); Marlin Taylor (Dutch Fork); Gary Smallen (River Bluff); Kirk Burnett (Airport), Phil Strickland (Newberry) and Mark Cagle (Gilbert).
Kennedy said the response from Midlands’ business and community leaders has been overwhelmingly positive.
“They’re real excited about it,” he said. “We’ve got (Columbia) Mayor (Steve) Benjamin doing the coin toss. He’s going to be a part of it. A lot of the businesses in the area are really excited about it. They’re doing some things for the teams. They’re feeding the teams during the week, so the community is really excited about it.”
COLUMBIA METRO BOWL WEST ROSTER
QB – Brandon Caughman (Airport) and  John Ragin (Irmo)
RBs – Kendrell Flowers (Irmo); Antonio Gantt (River Bluff) and Jeremiah Green (Pelion)
WRs – Travon Alston (Pelion); Keenan Coats (Swansea); Joe Pradubsri (Brookland-Cayce) and Kyser Samuel (Gray Collegiate)
TE – Cleburne Gray (River Bluff)
OL –  Hampton Ergle (Lexington); Cameron Johnson (Dutch Fork); Sean Miller (Airport); Tyrick McCoy (Brookland-Cayce) and J.C. Redmond (Airport)
DL – Kendrick Allen and Jamar Walker (both of Dutch Fork); Wyatt Hall (Lexington); Noah Johnson (River Bluff) and David Kinard (White Knoll)
LBs – Josiah Commander (Dutch Fork); Dillon Cornwell (Gilbert); Logan Cripe (Lexington); Paul Edwards (Brookland-Cayce); Julius Land (Irmo) and Jake Watson (Chapin)
DBs – Jacob Bannister (White Knoll); Allen Fields (Swansea); Okachi Emmanwori (Irmo); Taylor Lehman (Chapin); Cody Temples (Gilbert) and Jaewon Williams (Batesburg-Leesville)
Athlete – Tay Wilson (B-L) and Dante Williams (Swansea)
Kickers – Coltin Hallman (River Bluff) and Alex Nelson (Chapin)