Poplarville's defense prepares to meet new challenge
The Poplarville Hornets are looking to move their winning streak to 5-0, as they travel to Heidleberg to face the Oilers on Friday night.
After coming back in the second half to secure an impressive 20-14 win against Stone last week, the Hornets moved up to 9th in the Associated Press’ high school football poll.
“Instead of losing hope when they get down, good teams, well, they get more focused,” Poplarville head coach Jay Beech said about his team. “We’ve been down at the half a couple times, like last week, and just increased our intensity, our effort, and our focus, when we went back out. Our kids have just played with a refuse to lose attitude.”
Once again Poplarville’s powerhouse defense played a huge role in securing the win, keeping the Tomcats from scoring the entire second half of the game.
“I don’t think we’ve allowed a point in the second half this whole year, so that's a big deal,” Poplarville head coach Jay Beech said. “Our defense just plays great. They know their job. They don’t have a confusing job, just a real simple task every play and they aren’t selfish.”
Beech explained that every single one of his linebackers were noteworthy after last week’s win in Wiggins; like Ross Barnett with 14 tackles and Peytan Graham with 13.
“They do their job every single play and they do it with a lot of intensity and lot of effort,” he said.
Beech said he hopes they continue with that intensity Friday against Hiedleberg. The Oilers, under Coach Darius Dear, are 3-1 coming off of a 34-0 win on the road over Wilkinson County.
“They’re a really good 2A school and they run a true spread offense which is something we haven’t really seen this year,” Beech said. “Our defensive backs will be locked up man to man on their receivers, out in the open. They are going to throw it a lot and really test our defensive backs for sure.”
According to Beech, the Hornets’ defense has won the confidence of the players and coaches on the team, but explained that this game will be a true test of their abilities.
“We have a lot of confidence in them, but for some of them, this is their first time to go up against an offense like this,” he said. “So we’ll get to see how good we are when faced with this type of offense.”
Download the WRJW app here to listen to the game or tune in to WRJW 1320 AM in the Picayune area. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:00pm with the broadcast starting at 6:30pm with the Paw Paw's Campers & Cars Pregame Show. Join the WRJW broadcast team of Clay Sweet (play by play), Jeff Lossett (color commentator), and Jason Baker (sideline reporter)
