Published: August 27, 2008 10:03 am         

Ethel, McAdams face tough openers; Weir Lions host South Leake, Durant Tigers pay visit to Edinburg

It’s time for the talk to end and the pad-popping to begin.

The action begins in earnest among Mississippi High School Activities Association teams on Friday night, with eight local teams kicking off their seasons. Winona Christian School, which competes in the MPSA, began it’s season with a 32-6 win over Central Holmes last Friday night.

While all of the area teams are certainly looking to get their seasons off to a good start, the five MHSAA Class 1A schools are facing even more of an urgent situation.

While most classifications have a warm-up game or two, those in 1A play region games from the very beginning.

“They all count,” said Weir High School head coach Jim Wood. “It doesn’t matter who you are playing, you have to be ready to play.”

The one thing you don’t want to do is to get into an early hole.

“If you do that you wind up playing catch up for the rest of the year,” said French Camp Academy head coach Nathan Wright.

Perhaps the most interesting of the opening-day games in Region 3-1A has Ethel High School under second-year head coach Paul Dees playing host to Nanih Waiya High School. Dees said that first game can set the tone of the season.

“I really believe if we had won that first game last year, things would have been a little different,” said Dees, of his team’s 3-7 season in 2007. “It just makes every game important. There are no let-ups.”

Four teams out of Region 3-1A make the playoffs. Weir and Durant are the preseason favorites, just as they were last year, but many observers are projecting that as many as seven of the 11 teams in the league could be battling for those spots.

“I think it is going to be a lot more competitive this year,” Wood said. “Ethel is going to be better and you keep hearing that Sebastopol and South Leake have improved. And I’ve heard really good things about Nanih Waiya.”

While Nanih Waiya is visiting Ethel, McAdams will be on the road at Noxapater, French Camp entertains Sebastopol, Weir visits South Leake and Durant is at Edinburg.

In other area games Kosciusko opens the Trey Rolison era at Northwest Rankin, while Williams-Sullivan plays host to Newton High School and Winona Christian School visits Benton.

“You just can’t afford to lose to many games early,” said Noxpater head coach Bobby Bowman, whose Tigers host McAdams. “The next thing you know you find yourself fighting just to get into the playoffs.”

McAdams head coach Ras Bayles just hopes his team plays well when it travels down to Winston County on Friday.

“I know they have a lot of speed,” Bayles said. “That’s going to be a real challenge for us. We have some more players out this year, but we still will be very young.”

Ethel will be facing a very tough squad when the Tigers open the season on Friday.

“Nanih Waiya has a lot of players back,” Dees said. “They are certainly a veteran team.”

While Edinburg has lost 54 straight games, Durant coach Ashely Kuhn isn’t overlooking the Eagles.

“Anybody can beat you if you’re not ready to play,” Kuhn said.