After falling to the No. 1 class 4A team Thomasville Tigers 42-8 on the road Friday night, the W.S. Neal Eagle football team will play host to the Saraland Spartans in their final region game of the season.
Despite losing last week by 34 points to the No. 1 team in the state, W.S. Neal Eagle head coach Doug Hoehn said his team played extremely hard.
“Thomasville is a very good football team,” Hoehn said. “I think our kids had a good week of practice. We started three freshmen on defense due to injuries and another defensive starter has been out due to injuries. With that said, I thought the kids played well. There were two times when we did not tackle well and they broke those runs for touchdowns and then there were two other times when we made the wrong reads and that opened up runs for touchdowns. But on the whole, if you take away those four snaps, we played hard all night long. Thomasville is just a very good football team and they are just hard to contain.”
As for Saraland this week, the Spartans come in with a 4-4 record overall and are 3-3 in region play. Friday night, Saraland defeated B.C. Rain 24-19.
“Saraland is playing good football right now,” Hoehn said. “They have won their last two and have beat Atmore and last week B.C. Rain. Both those teams have athletes. They are a senior-heavy team with, I think, 26 seniors on the team this year and they are playing with a lot of confidence right now.”
Hoehn said the Spartan running back is a player to watch.
“No. 5 for them, Emil Harris, is hard to stop,” Hoehn said. “We just need to have a good week of practice. We need to prepare, play hard and limit our mistakes.”
Game time is set for 7 p.m. at W.S. Neal Stadium in East Brewton.