Kris Pickle and the New Hope High School football team have turned the page.
A 42-21 loss to Oxford last Friday all but ended New Hope’s initial goal of winning the Class 5A, Region 1. While the sting of that loss hasn’t subsided, Pickle and the Trojans have re-assessed their goals and set their sights on a new target: earning a No. 2 seed in the region. If New Hope accomplishes that goal, it will earn the right to play host to a playoff game in the first round of the North State playoffs.
To get there, New Hope (7-1, 3-1 region) will have to take care of Lewisburg (4-5, 1-3) at 7 p.m. Friday in Columbus. A win would set the stage for a matchup against West Point (6-3, 2-1). Both teams would still have one more regular-season game to play, so there still is a lot left to sort out. Pickle said New Hope will begin the journey with a new sense of purpose.
“They want an opportunity to get back (to Oxford) again,” Pickle said. “Hopefully we will get back to them again and have another shot at them because we definitely didn’t play our best game. They probably would say the same thing. They had some guys injured, and we have some guys injured. Hopefully we will get back to them and play a cleaner game.”
Oxford and New Hope combined for 27 penalties that resulted in nearly 300 yards in mark-offs. Despite giving up two safeties on intentional groundings in the end zone and not scoring in the second half, Pickle feels his team gained confidence from the loss. He said the players believe they can play with Oxford, which is ranked in the top 10 of The Associated Press state rankings. New Hope was ranked No. 10 in the overall state rankings last week, but it fell out of the top 10 after the loss.
“Player for player they may have a guy here or there that can cause you some problems, but as a team and how we are made up, we feel we can compete with Oxford,” Pickle said. “Our goal is to get to a state championship, and we feel like (Oxford) is the team to beat in the North. West Point is right there with them, and you have some teams like Pearl in the South that are pretty good.
“We felt like we took Oxford to the limit. We should have led at halftime. We had a couple of mental busts on the kickoff team and a couple of other areas that allowed them to grab the lead at halftime. Then we had the bust right after halftime.”
Oxford used an onside kick to prevent New Hope from building any momentum in the second half. Even though the Chargers didn’t score after recovering the kick, the Trojans never found their rhythm in the second half thanks to increased pressure from Oxford and several penalties that put New Hope behind the chains.
Despite those mistakes, Pickle left the game feeling good about his team’s chances. Junior running back Brenton Spann eclipsed the 100-yard rushing mark thanks in part to a 92-yard touchdown run. He feels the team has cleaned up the mistakes it made in the loss and will be ready for similar situations the rest of the way.
New Hope will tackle those challenges with a renewed purpose and energy. In the backs of the players’ minds, they will use a possible rematch against Oxford as motivation, but they will move forward knowing they have work to do to accomplish their new goal.
“I don’t know how you can work toward anything if you don’t have anything to work toward,” Pickle said. “I left it up to the players and asked them what they wanted to do the rest of the season. Everybody is going to say, ‘I want to win a state championship.’ But they truly believe they are good enough to play in the same breath as West Point and Oxford and Pearl. I know I keep mentioning those teams, and there are some other good teams in the division, but they have been the measuring stick in Class 5A and in the division.
“Being able to overcome adversity, I think it made us tougher and closer as a team. As a coaching staff, no matter what goes on with the officiating, I think we did a bad job as a coaching staff and a bad job as a team of letting it affect us. … You always have to point a finger back in your face and look at yourself and re-evaluate yourself. There are a lot of positives to come out of that game, and there are a lot of things that made us better as a football team, and stronger as a football team.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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