The W.S. Neal Eagle football team will go up against their toughest test yet this Friday night as they travel to No. 1 Thomasville.
Thomasville comes into the game with the Eagles ranked No. 1 in class 4A and undefeated at 7-0 and 5-0 in region play.
Thomasville comes into the game Friday after a 28-24 win over UMS-Wright.
W.S. Neal comes into the game with the No. 1 Tigers with a 1-6 record and 1-4 in region play after losing to B.C. Rain 40-21 Thursday at Ladd-Peebles Stadium.
Eagle head coach Doug Hoehn said that turnovers in the game against B.C. Rain hurt his team once again.
“Turnovers hurt us early and gave them a big second quarter,” Hoehn said. “I felt like we were flat and our timing was just a little bit off. Defensively, at times, we did not play our responsibilities well. We didn’t run our lanes and attack. B.C. Rain was an athletic team and when you make mistakes against them, it hurt us. Defensively, they did not drive the ball down the field on us all night long. We just made some wrong reads and they made a couple of big plays on us. I think when you look back on the game, it was the second quarter that hurt us. The turnovers we gave them led to 20 points for them and the turnovers directly gave them 14 points. We hurt ourselves in the second quarter.”
As for Thomasville this week, Hoehn said the Tigers are a very good football team.
“They have all the components of a championship team,” Hoehn said. “They are all big and fast. They play extremely hard and they are very athletic.”
Hoehn said Tiger players Tyler Hayes and Jonathan Knight are key players.
“No. 28 Hayes is an incredible football player,” Hoehn said. “He is hard to deal with and is powerful. He is also fast and another player is No. 22 Knight. He is a very good player also.”
Hoehn said without the turnovers his team has made, the win-loss record for the Eagles would be different.
“I think it is very possible our win-loss record would not be where it is right now,” he said. “The kids are playing hard. Even last Thursday night, I think we came a little flat after the turnovers and that kind of surprised us. For the last couple of games at least, we have done a good job of not making turnovers. That was two games where we did not turn the ball over. That was the first time this season and I think the kids were playing with more confidence after that. I think what happened Thursday, we reverted back to the past ways before those last two games where we had been turning the ball over. We did not handle it very well.”
Game time is set for 7 p.m. Friday in Thomasville.