After an easy win over Cottage Hill Friday night at home in the rain, the W.S. Neal Eagle football team will gear up for a road trip to Selma this Friday night and they are scheduled to meet the Panthers of Southside-Selma.
W.S. Neal improved to 2-1 overall and to 1-1 in region play Friday night with a 48-2 win over the Cottage Hill Christian Academy Warriors.
In the game Friday night, W.S. Neal head coach Doug Hoehn said he thought the kids on his team played well.
“We like to see improvement every week and I think they improved,” W.S. Neal head coach Doug Hoehn said. “We did a lot of things really well, but there are still a couple of things we are going to have to work on and we will get that done in practice this week. Overall, I think we improved from the previous week.”
Hoehn said several players had a good game against the Cottage Hill Warriors.
“I thought Quenton Samuels ran the ball well for us on offense with 17 carries for 290 yards and four touchdowns. Malcolm Hawthorne ran the ball well for us with seven carries and 127 yards and scored two touchdowns. Peyton Salter rushed for one touchdown. Orlando Smith, Zack Williams and Rob Jones all did a good job for us upfront blocking.”
Defensively Khadarrius Taylor had a good game for the Eagles of East Brewton according to Hoehn.
“He had an outstanding game with nine tackles and one for a loss,” Hoehn said. “Trey Taylor and D.J. Hodges also did good on defense. Trey had seven tackles with two for a loss while D.J. had five tackles for one loss. Miles Powell had one tackle for a loss and Michael Williams had six tackles and a sack. Quantae Barksdale had an exceptional game for us.They had two interceptions, a pass breakup and three tackles. He just did a great job of covering all night long. Overall we had 469 yards rushing in the game with 27 passing.”
As for Selma, Hoehn said they are a very athletic team.
“They are athletic and they have a lot of size,” Hoehn said. “Their kids play hard. They have hurt themselves with turnovers. When I look at them, I see a team that if they show up to play and don’t turn the ball over, they can be tough to deal with. We are really going to have to get our reads correct on defense and stay in our lanes. They have some speed and their quarterback can throw the ball down the field. We just can’t afford to be in the wrong alignment or take wrong angles.”
Hoehn said the Panthers are big upfront on defense.
“We are going to expect them to crowd the box on us upfront,” he said. “We are going to have to be sure to pick up our blocking schemes and see what happens when we spread them out. We are going to see how they respond to that and see how they lineup. We are going to see if we can get some match ups that will be advantageous for us.”
W.S. Neal is 5-0 all-time against Southside and defeated the Panthers 54-6 last season in East Brewton.
Southside is 1-2 overall this season after falling to Straughn Friday night 35-6. Selma is 1-1 in region play after they knocked off Cottage Hill in their first region game of the year this season.
Game time is set for 7 p.m. at Southside-Selma.
According to the school’s website, Southside High School is located approximately five miles southeast of Selma, Alabama, on the historic Civil Rights Trail, U. S. Highway 80 East between Mile Markers 93 and 94.
Take Interstate-65 north toward Montgomery.
Take exit 151 for AL-97 toward Letohatcbee/Davenport then turn left onto AL-97 North.
Turn left onto AL-8 W/US-80 West and the school is said to be on the right.