The Ethel Tigers got in their last work for before getting ready for the 2022 football season.
The Tigers traveled to Pisgah and took on the Dragons and McLaurin in a pair of one-quarter contests.
The Tigers beat McLaurin 12-0 and lost 14-0 to Pisgah.
Coach Adam Smith said he saw some good and bad from the Tigers on Friday night.
“I feel like we had a lot of positives,” Smith said. “We’ve got some guys who didn’t play last year who stepped up and performed well for the most part. We’ve got a to we can build off and make plenty of mistakes. That’s what yo expect in the first couple of weeks. You hope you can overcome those things and polish them up and get better every week.”
Against McLaurin, the Tigers had a pair of scoring drives with scores from Anton Clark and Marcus Jones.
“I thought we played well on offense and moved the ball well against McLaurin,” Smith said. “We actually had a chance to score three times. I thought we ran the ball well. Our shortest run was probably five or six yards. We were blocking well and running hard. Marcus Jones ran the ball well and we moved the ball well. We had two three and outs on defense and scored on both of them. We looked really good on both sides of the football.”
Against Pisgah, the Tigers lost 14-0.
“Pisgah is a solid football team and are consistent at being good at what they do,” Smith said. “We had them in third and long and had a busted coverage and gave them a big play. Then we had a mishandled snap and got behind the chains. We got out of position several times on defense. We were kind of playing selfish and chasing eye candy and not doing our job. We have to play much better on defense and be gap sound.”
This week’s game
The Tigers will travel to Lauderdale County and take on Clarkdale.
The two teams did not get to play last year because Ethel was shut down because of COVID issues. Clarkdale went 8-4 last year and lost in the first round of the playoffs to Jefferson Davis County.
“They are a solid team,” Smith said. “We didn’t get to play them last year. I think they lost a few back and the quarterbacks looks new. From what I see, they have 35 kids and so do we so it will be even on numbers. It may be a totally lopsided game but it looks like we have about the same number of kids. They are pretty big up front and have athletes on both sides of the football.”
