Heading into the final regular season game of the year, the T.R. Miller Tigers are one game away from a perfect regular season.
With a win Friday night in Sweet Water, T.R. Miller would clinch a perfect regular season 10-0 record. The 2008 team was the last Tiger team to accomplish such a feat. If the 2013 team duplicates the 10-0 record, they will be the ninth T.R. Miller team to do so.
T.R. Miller improved to 9-0 last week and finished with a perfect 7-0 regular season after taking down rival W.S. Neal 28-0 in the annual Battle of Murder Creek.
“Well, it is always great if you can win that game because it is the biggest game of the year,” Tiger head coach Jamie Riggs said. “I thought we did a good job of just being tough the other night. We didn’t do some things the other night in the first half as we made some mistakes and didn’t get the ball in the end zone. We had it two or three times there in the second quarter, but we didn’t get any points.
W.S. Neal is a good defensive team and to their credit they had a good plan and they did a good job of slowing us down some. Finally in the third quarter we were able to get things going a little bit more. Neal is a good team with good players and if you can win that game, you have to feel good about it.”
Sweet Water, who was ranked No. 9 in 2A in last week’s ASWA football poll, is currently 7-2 overall this year and finished their region schedule with a 7-0 record.
The Bulldogs lost to 4A Thomasville 35-13 in week one and took a 27-24 loss to Maplesville in week five who is 9-0 in class 1A.
The two teams met last year for the first time with T.R. Miller winning 28-27.
The Bulldogs have won five state championships during head coach Stacy Luker’s 12-year tenure at the school. Sweet Water has made six semifinal appearances in the last seven years alone.
“Sweet Water is very similar to what they have been,” Riggs said. “They have a very good running back in No. 2, Jakoby Aldridge. We had difficulty with him last year. He is really quick and has caused trouble for everybody. I don’t know how many yards he has, but he has a lot of them. They have another 240-pound fullback in No. 5, Demarcus Gamble. He is different from the one last year, but they do a great job of running the ball on offense. They control the line of scrimmage and then Aldridge has been able to bust a long run for them.
æIt is not a big secret that they are going to get the ball to those two guys and run the ball.”
On defense, Riggs said Sweet Water is very quick and athletic.
“They have really great speed over there,” he said. “They have really played good defense over there. They have only lost two games to Thomasville and Maplesville. They pretty much have romped over everybody else. They are extra tough at home so we have a big challenge in front of us.”
Game time is set for 7 p.m. Friday night in Sweet Water.
T.R. Miller will have a pep rally Thursday night at 6 p.m. at the school’s gym.
Sweet Water High School is located at 440 Main Street in Sweet Water.

Directions:
• Take AL-41 North for 26.1 miles.
•Turn left onto US-84 West and continue to follow US-84 West for 40.2 miles.
• Merge onto US-43 North via the ramp to Thomasville for 26 miles
• Turn left onto AL-10 West for 5.9 miles
• Turn right onto Main Street
•Destination will be on the right