Knowing Shane Davis as long as I have, I know the Apalachee High School mentor is not one for moral victories.
Yet, even Davis will admit to the fact his team played well last Friday in a 22-17 loss on the road against undefeated Heritage. The Wildcats had legitimate chances to win the contest and pushed the Patriots as far as any opponent has in 2011.
Still, the win was just out of reach for AHS and that is what remained on Davis’ mind, even a couple of days later.
“We played extremely hard and I was very proud of our kids and coaches,” Davis said Sunday. “We put ourselves in position to win against an undefeated team. We had some opportunities that we didn’t take advantage of. Heritage had some opportunities, but we also made some plays to stop them.”
While he said his team did make some mistakes, Davis said he liked the fact his Wildcats battled to be in position to win the game.
“We will have to continue to give that same level of effort,” the coach said. “We have been talking for a couple of weeks about it. We came out with good effort against Flowery Branch, but then didn’t do well offensively against Salem. We were better against Heritage.”
The AHS players went back to work earlier this week in preparation for Madison County. While they don’t have the best record in recent seasons the Red Raiders will be a challenge this Friday.
Davis looks at his team’s three road losses this fall and sees all of them by a combined 15 points. The close call at Heritage last week was an indication of how close the Wildcats are to the win column.
“We are close,” Davis said. “At the end of the day, you would rather be close than far away from winning. I did feel better about Friday night, but when I woke up Saturday, it was still a loss. We can never be satisfied with losing, regardless of how close we are to winning.”
The AHS coach compares this season to climbing a mountain.
“We started out facing a long climb several years ago,” Davis said. “We knew it was going to take some time, but we did it. “Now we are climbing again, but we will get there.”
Entering this Friday at 0-4 overall and 0-4 in Region 8-AAAA, Davis said the best medicine for his team is to win. It really doesn’t matter how it’s done. A win would be great medicine for all involved with the program.
“A win takes care of a lot,” he said. “I’ve always said I’d rather win ugly than lose pretty any day of the week. There’s no option for us other than to continue working and get things going in the direction we want it to go. This season has not gone the way we thought it would, but there is still plenty to accomplish and plenty that we can accomplish. It all starts this Friday night against Madison County.”
Chris Bridges is sports editor of the Barrow Journal. You can send comments about this column to cbridges@barrowjournal.com.
