NEW HOPE — Season openers are what teams work toward the entire offseason and are an important jumping-off point for the season to come.
However, when you’re New Hope and Caledonia facing off in a season opener, it means just a bit more for both programs and both schools.
The Trojans/Cavaliers rivalry dates back nearly 70 years, and on Friday, the two schools will face off for the first time since 2019, with their scheduled 2021 meeting canceled due to COVID-19. The two scrimmaged in 2020.
Big stakes and even bigger bragging rights are now on the table for this county matchup.
“We try to take the emotion out of big-emotion games, and we want to line up and play them just like we would any other opponent we’re going to play,” New Hope head coach Seth Stillman said. “That’s obviously very difficult because this is a pretty big rivalry, but our main goal is to take as much emotion out of it as we can and play our game.”
Being that these two schools play so close to each other, there are plenty of friendships on both sides, and off the field, there’s definitely lots of camaraderie between the two programs.
That completely changes once both teams touch the field, where there’s no love lost. Leading up to the matchup, there’s already been jawing and trash talk exchanged — nothing new to the New Hope/Caledonia rivalry and always expected.
It’s also a rivalry renewed in a sense because the two schools haven’t faced off in a few years, so there’s even more anticipation from the players’ side for Friday to get here.
“I’m very excited,” senior middle linebacker Alex McCarter said. “I really haven’t played Caledonia since my ninth-grade year because of COVID. That’s one of our crosstown rivals.”
New Hope is coming off a tough 5-5 season, one that saw them lose five of six games at one point, but the Trojans return a number of players and veteran leaders on the defensive side of the ball.
Contrastingly, Caledonia is coming off a fantastic 11-3 season that saw them reach the state semifinals before losing a close 34-27 game at the hands of Senatobia.
In this all-time matchup, the Cavaliers are just 8-48-1 against the Trojans and since 2004 are just 2-14 against New Hope.
“We expect their best,” Caledonia head coach Michael Kelly said. “It’s two teams that don’t really like each other. It’s a rival. It’s a county rival. That’s what it’s supposed to be … It’s a great incentive and motivation for your kids in the offseason, it adds fuel to the fire.”
In the traditional sense of the word, this is a rivalry, but when looking at the all-time records, it’s a very one-sided rivalry, something Kelly and Caledonia are more than aware of.
Two wins against New Hope in the last 18 years is not something anyone with the Cavaliers wants to see, but there’s a new expectation of success within the program after last season, something that’s new to Caledonia.
“I think they’ve stopped calling it a rivalry,” Kelly said. “Our kids have really got to win a few of the football games and execute to try to flip that script a little bit.”
You would have to look back to 2015 for the last time that the two teams played in a one-score game, with New Hope pulling off a 27-24 win.
For a period between 2008 and 2013, New Hope shut out Caledonia six consecutive times, outscoring the Cavs by 36.3 points a game over that time.
This year, this is a different New Hope team and a significantly different Caledonia team, but the Trojans are still confident and have put in a great week of practice, battling the elements leading up to Friday.
“Probably the most focused practice we’ve had all week was (Wednesday),” senior cornerback Hayden Dodson said. “I think that’s going to show come Friday night.”
This is going to be one of the biggest games for both teams this season, and a big crowd is expected at New Hope, along with raucous student sections.
The Trojans are touted as having one of the best student sections in the state, and they’ll be on full display along with a wild away section of Caledonia fans.
There’s no misstating this: New Hope is the place to be at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
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