Kris Pickle is eager to start sorting things out.
Tyrone Shorter feels the same sense of urgency, but he has another week before games really start to count.
At 7 tonight, Pickle’s New Hope High School football team will play host to Clarksdale in the Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA) Class 5A, Region 1 opener. In Macon, Shorter’s Noxubee County High Tigers will play host to Class 3A rival Kemper County in their final non-district match.
Both teams would like nothing better than to build momentum for the pivotal stretches of their season.
“I thought we played our most complete game as a whole Friday night (in a 49-10 victory against Caledonia),” Pickle said. “We executed better on special teams, defense, and on offense. We tackled a lot better. That was the encouraging thing. As long as we’re seeing progress each week, when I can come back here and say we’re getting better at this, this, and this, then I think we are on the right track.”
Being on the right track will be crucial for New Hope considering the uncertainty in the region. Aside from West Point, which many consider the front-runner and a contender for the Class 5A State title, no one is quite sure how Center Hill, Clarksdale (4-1), Lake Cormorant, Lewisburg, New Hope, Oxford, the Class 5A runner-up, and Saltillo will fall into place.
A year ago, New Hope won only three games and missed the playoffs. This season, though, New Hope avenged losses to Louisville and Aberdeen before falling to Class 6A Columbus. Pickle was concerned about the way his players handled adversity following that game. He said the team attempted to re-focus in its bye week and that he saw positives from the performance against the Class 4A Confederates.
This week, Pickle is curious to see if the Trojans (3-1) can carry that momentum over against an opponent he knows will have a size advantage.
“Can we control the offensive and defensive sides of the line of scrimmage?” Pickle said. “If we can do those things, I feel pretty good. It is the same situation every year. They are extremely big, extremely athletic, and they are going to look as good as any team that gets off the bus that we play all year.”
Shorter has similar concerns about how his team will look coming out of the field house tonight following a 47-6 loss to West Point last week. Turnovers put the 2014 and 2015 Class 4A State champion Tigers (2-3) in a big halftime hole and left Shorter scratching his head as he watched the game play out.
“In 19 years here, I have never seen us play that poorly defensively,” Shorter said. “It was almost as if we didn’t want to tackle. We were out of position a lot. We wanted to arm tackle. It was almost like they were too physical for us, which I know is not the case.”
Shorter also was surprised to see players want to come out of the game. He can live with turnovers if the Tigers are working and playing hard, but the mistakes are magnified when an opponent “wants it more” than his team, which is what he saw watching the Green Wave. He praised West Point coach Chris Chambless and the Green Wave for taking it to the Tigers.
“We were flat, we got behind a few touchdowns and it was like our kids just folded,” Shorter said.
The good sign is Shorter likes how the Tigers responded this week in practice. He said he received 25 text messages from players following the loss from players who said they were sorry for letting their coach down. Shorter said he met with his seniors Monday to give the team a fresh start and to encourage them to set the tone. He said the team leaders have re-dedicated themselves to working hard, to practicing physically, and to supporting each other to put the loss behind them.
“Championship teams bounce back,” Shorter said. “I am eager to see how well they respond after this week of practice. It had to be the toughest week of practice we have had all year. The good thing is none of the kids complained about it. We had three really, really good practices. I hope that game woke us up.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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