Mount de Sales, Tattnall Square, Stratford look to set tone for season
The first game of a season can sometimes set the tone for the entire year, and for three Bibb County teams starting their second year in the GHSA, that season starts Friday night.
Mount de Sales opens at home with Pacelli, a team that beat the Cavaliers 44-10 in head coach Keith Hatcher’s debut a year ago, while Stratford and Tattnall Square both open on the road against Savannah Country Day and GMC, respectively.
“They beat us up pretty good in the opening game last year, and I think this will be a great measuring stick for how far we have come as a football team,” Hatcher said. “The biggest difference for us is our commitment to the weight room, and I feel like we are light years away from the opening game a year ago. We gained some momentum from our scrimmage against Howard.
“We still aren’t where we want to be as a football team, but we are definitely getting there.”
Mount de Sales lost 90 percent of its offensive production from a year ago, but Hatcher is confident that he has weapons on offense.
“We will rely heavily on our new quarterback Pinkney Gilchrist to handle our offense, and we will start a sophomore running back, Adrian Hardwick, and we expect him to be a playmaker,” Hatcher said. “We also look for Tres Hattaway, who has mainly been a defensive player, to make an impact at wide receiver. But the biggest change we will have is our depth. We are dressing about 11 more kids that we dressed last year, and that is a huge step for us.”
Stratford opens on the road against Savannah Country Day, a team it beat by 30 points last year.
“It’s not a bad thing to start with a long trip because every team has to learn to win on the road,” Stratford head coach Mark Farriba said. “We only led Savannah Country Day 28-21 in the third quarter last year, but they wore down as the game went on. We expect a hard-hitting football game.”
Stratford will be on the road next week, as well, against Wesleyan, a team that beat Stratford a year ago, and then plays Aquinas, the GHSA Region 7-A champion last year.
“We should have a good feel for where we are as a football team after the first three weeks,” Farriba said. “We think that we are in a position to compete for a sub-region title, but we have to beat a lot of great football teams.”
Stratford will be led by senior O’Showen Williams who had more than 1,000 yards rushing last year, and quarterback-turned-wide receiver Quintez Cephus, who is expected to make an impact at his new position. Defensively, the Eagles will be led by last year’s leading tackler, Jack Peterson, and linemen Justin Griffin and Tobe Umerah.
Tattnall also goes on the road to open up against GMC, a team it easily defeated a year ago.
“It’s always an exciting time of year when football season starts,” said Tattnall head coach Clint Morgan, who guided his team to the region championship game a year ago. “We lost 19 seniors from last year, so we have been putting the pieces of the puzzle together and trying to find a way to win football games. We feel very good about our skill players, but we know that GMC will be much improved from last year.”
Leading the way for Tattnall will be running back Ahmad Barron, new quarterback Destin Mack, free safety/running back Aubrien Kemp and Jimmy Marshall, a 6-foot-5 215-pound wide receiver who tore his ACL in the first game of the season a year ago.