Suddenly, the Apalachee High School football team has worked itself back into postseason contention.
Friday’s 27-23 road win against Cedar Shoals has the Wildcats still very much alive for the postseason. With the three games remaining, AHS would likely need to win out and that starts this Friday with the homecoming game against Salem High School.
The Seminoles are coming off a bye week and are 2-5 overall and 1-4 in Region 8-AAAAA. AHS is now 3-4 overall and 2-3 in region play.
Salem quarterback Damien Gordon is one of the top weapons for coach John Starr.
“Their quarterback is very talented,” said AHS defensive coordinator Matt Sorrells. “They also have several running backs they rotate who are dangerous as well.
Although we are used to seeing the Wing-T from our own offense, they run everything out of the gun, so it makes the reads and coverage responsibilities a little different. The number of missed tackles has gone down each of the last few weeks and we need that aspect of our defense to continue to improve.”
Wildcat head coach Shane Davis said he hopes his players will remained focused this week with the task at hand.
It’s homecoming week at the school although Davis doesn’t expect that to be too much of an issue.
“We don’t really have things going on after school,” the head coach said. “Over the last couple of years homecoming has not really bothered us. It’s a little different in how everything is handled here. When you have things like bonfires the night before the game, then it can be a distraction. I think we’ll be OK. I like how we are doing our homecoming events during the school day.”
AHS offensive coordinator Joel Miller said he hopes the team can carry over the momentum from the second half into this week against Salem.
“I was really proud of our kids Friday night,” Miller said. “We had a rough first half, but at halftime everyone seemed calm and confident and we came back out and executed much better. We as coaches also remained calm after struggling so bad in the first half. We just didn’t feel like our kids needed to be yelled at, they needed to gain some confidence from our demeanor. We did draw up a couple of plays with some different blocking schemes that worked well in the second half. Our team acted like an experienced veteran team that they are and we continued to fight and came out with the win. I was happy for Monterian (Smith). It has to be tough moving into a school and joining a team mid-season, but I think he made a lot of friends Friday night.”
Smith is a recent transfer from Monroe Area and has quickly become a welcomed member of the Wildcats.
Looking ahead to this Friday, Miller said Salem will base out of the 3-4 defensive scheme.
“Their defense features a lot of speed and athleticism, so we will have to handle that,” Miller said. “I feel like we were overwhelmed by Cedar in the first half with their speed and size. If we are not ready to play, Salem has the players to do the same thing.”
