Formerly District 1-5A foes, Starkville Academy’s game hosting Magnolia Heights tonight won’t have the same heft of district championship hopes on the line like last year’s clash – but that isn’t changing how the Volunteers are preparing for this week’s game.
Head coach Chase Nicholson knows his squad has to be prepared for an all-out battle for four quarters when the Chiefs, now a member of District 1-4A, are on the opposing sideline.
“They play hard, they’re sound, they have good schemes. That’s the reason they’ve been successful and have been that way for several years now,” Nicholson said. “… We’re excited about Friday night. We’re always excited to play against good teams, especially in front of our home crowd, so we’re excited to get out there and compete and build on our win from last week and keep trying to play better and get better.”
It was a drama-filled bout when the two teams squared off last season. The Volunteers held the lead in the fourth quarter and were looking to add to their total, because beating the Chiefs by eight points would have won them the district championship and given the team the No. 3 seed in the playoffs – but disaster struck. Magnolia Heights forced a crucial turnover and scored to pull out a 23-21 victory.
“That said a lot about who they were as a team and as a coaching staff,” Nicholson said. “For them, my hats off to them because they made it happen when they needed to.”
Now both teams are in separate districts, with the Vols in District 2-4A, up for grabs Friday is just a regular old win. That’s more than enough reason for the Vols to get fired and ready to play.
“This is going to be more about pride and who wants to make a statement in the state in our division,” he said. “There’s a lot that goes into it with no district bearings on it, but It’s Friday night – they all matter. So we’re treating it like we always do: It’s the most important game we’ll play this week.”
SA brings a 5-1 record into the game after last week’s 16-8 victory over Pillow Academy in which running back Lawson Mullins ran in both of the Vols’ two touchdowns. The Vols’ only setback came on Sept. 26 at Parklane Academy, where it was held scoreless in a 37-0 loss – the program’s first time being shutout since a loss to Jackson Academy of the same score opened the 2021 season. The ground game has been the team’s bread and butter when it comes to offense and has led them to produce an average of 22 points a game.
“We’ve gotten better and better every week on figuring out our identity and what we’re going to be able to do each week,” he said. “We’re going to be a run-first (offense), we believe in running the football, that’s just part of who we are. But obviously we spread the ball out a good bit. We have a good bit of receivers that we try to get the ball to. (We) have an offensive line that does a good job for us, we just have to continue to do what we do, which is run the ball and control the clock and keep our defense on the sideline so they’re fresh every series.”
Magnolia Heights is coming off a first-round playoff win last season and brings a 6-1 record into Friday. Featuring a high-powered offense, the Chiefs are averaging 41 points a contest and have produced two wins in which they scored over 60 points, two wins with over 40 points and two wins with over 30 points scored. The team’s only loss was sustained last week against Jackson Academy.
“You’ve got to stop the run; they like to run the ball. To me, any good high school offense is going to want to run the ball first and make you stop that, because if you can’t stop that you are going to have a good night,” Nicholson said. “They are going to try to hurt you if you stack up too much against the run. They have the ability to throw it vertically. They do a lot of RPOs and stuff like that, so they’re going to keep you off balance if they can. We’ve got to put them in situations, get them behind the chains much like ourselves. I think they have a similar style to us.”
It’s a tall task in slowing them down, but Nicholson is confident his defense can keep them from running away with it.
“As long as we play defense the way we’re supposed to play defense, as long as we are limiting big plays and forcing them to do things they don’t want to do, I have all the confidence in the world that our defense will come out playing great,” he said. “But that’s every week. We’ve got to come out and play our game week in and week out; it doesn’t matter who we are up against.”
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