By: Whitman McGee
Straight off the heels of a 7-40 loss to the scorching hot (8-1) Huntington Raiders, the Minden Crimson Tide (3-6) closes out the regular season on the road Friday against the Franklin Parish Patriots.
The Patriots (1-7), much like some of Minden’s previous opponents, are a much better team than their record may indicate, as each of their losses came to an above 500. playoff contender.
Tide Head Coach, Spencer Heard, credited Franklin Parish, saying, “They’re solid across the board. They’ve got a good running back, a big tight end, and a receiver that they try to get the ball to who’re all talented.”
Defensively, Heard says that the Patriots “get to the ball well and play within the scope of their scheme.”
Minden leads the overall regular-season series against the Patriots, 2-0. Last year’s matchup was canceled due to Covid-19.
With a win on Friday night, the Tide would put themselves in prime position for an opportunity at postseason play.
Coach Heard realizes the magnitude of this game, telling The Journal, “We understand the implications of this game. Based off where we’re sitting in the powerpoints, it looks to be a do-or-die situation in terms of a win or a loss.”
This week, Coach Heard acknowledged the defensive line’s efforts, especially against the Raider’s stellar rushing attack.
“For most of the game, I thought our D-line played really well last week. We were able to limit their rushing yardage for most of the game.”
Heard also accredited Junior’s Kielyn Combs and Makhi Reed with playing well on both sides of the ball.
It’s been quite the rollercoaster season for Minden, with untimely injuries derailing this team from reaching its full potential.
Despite this, the Tide has improved week by week, fighting diligently against steep competition with many players having to pull double duty and play on both sides of the ball.
If tasked with summarizing this season with one word, I’d use the word growth.
Growth isn’t always pretty, sometimes it’s downright ugly, but with growth comes development, both as football players and as men.
This group has grown together and flashed brilliance on several occasions, it’ll be interesting to see if they can put it all together to conclude the regular season.
If you can’t make it out to Winnsboro for Friday night’s regular-season finale, you can tune in to KBEF 104.5 for radio coverage of the game.
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