Prep football in eastern North Carolina is changing days n but just for one week.

Both local home football games scheduled for Friday have been moved up a day earlier and will be played tonight (Thursday). The changes have been made due to the threat of Tropical Storm Hanna heading towards eastern North Carolina.

Northampton County High School n East will travel to Hertford County High School for a 7:30 p.m. contest.

“Due to the possibility of bad weather for Friday, it made sense to go ahead and get the game in,” HCHS Athletic Director Charles Simmons said. “We don’t want to get ourselves into a position of having to play two games in one week unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

The Bears’ non-conference matchup with Northampton-East will take the place of the junior varsity contest originally scheduled for Thursday. That jayvee game will not be made up.

Also, Gates County High School will play its weekly football contest tonight. The Red Barons will host Pasquotank County High School in a non-conference outing.

That game was also scheduled for Friday, but GCHS Athletic Director Lulu Eure said they wanted to go ahead and play the contest.

“We felt like we should go ahead and get the game in,” Eure said. “The weather conditions are an unknown, but we decided to make the decision now instead of waiting.”

Bertie High School Athletic Director Marvin Rankins said Wednesday that his team will also be playing early.

“We’re going to New Bern Thursday night,” he said. “We’ll reschedule the junior varsity game later, but we all feel like it’s important to go ahead and get this game in.”

Games involving two other local teams had not had changes as of press time late Wednesday afternoon.

Northeast Academy Head Football Coach Collin Sneed said there had been no indication from Cary Christian that the game scheduled for Cary had been changed.

“As of now, we’ll be playing at Cary Christian Friday at 5:30 p.m.,” Sneed said. “There has been no change as of yet.”

Lawrence Academy Athletic Director Robert Kravitz said his team was in the same position.

The Warriors are still scheduled to make their trip to Oak Ridge Friday afternoon.

Chowan University’s Saturday trip to St. Paul’s College is also still on target as of now. More information about that game’s playing schedule will be available in Saturday’s edition of the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald.