Southmont football has completed the gauntlet of their final four games of the season. Now the Mounties prepare for a completely different challenge as they open up Class 2A Sectional 37 play on Friday when they welcome the North Knox Warriors to New Market on Friday.
Southmont sits a 6-3 on the season while the Warriors come in with a record of 4-5. With the all-new sectional realignment this season North Knox presents the Mounties with an unfamiliar opponent. However this week everyone’s record stands at 0-0 as longtime Southmont coach Desson Hannum knows a new season gets underway.
“Really at this point in the season you’re playing for your pads,” he said. “If you lose your season is over and you hang them up, but if you win you get to wear them for another week. That’s the mentality that we have to have is to come out and play well from the opening kick to make sure that we keep playing.”
The Warriors play a similar style to the Mounties in the fact that they are a run first team. North Knox has thrown just 62 passes the entire season compared to 390 rushes. Like the Mounties with Wyatt Woodall and Carson Chadd, the Warriors possess a two-headed monster at the running back position as juniors Caleb Bottum and Carter Lemberg carry the load. Bottum has rushed 136 times for 1,064 yards and nine touchdowns while Lemberg has 135 carries for 807 yards and seven touchdowns. In total North Knox has ran for 2,490 yards on the season.
“With having such an un-familiar opponent like we do with North Knox, it simply comes down to are we able to execute,” Hannum said. “We’re going to rely on our defense to come out and play fast and physical like they have all year. What they run is a very unique offense and something we haven’t really seen all season. All 10-11 are going to be mostly inside the box and it’ll come down to our defense to hold their own.”
For the Mounties on offense it will come down to getting off to a good start on first down. In their losses as of late, they weren’t quite able to establish their ground and pound game and put them in good positions on second and third downs. The duo of Woodall (734 yards and 11 TD’s) and Chadd (586 yards and six TD’s) will look to get the Mountie offense back on track.
“It starts with getting a rhythm going,” Hannum said. “Putting yourself in manageable second and third down situations allows us to still have all of our playbook available.”
A season ago the Mounties were able to pick up a sectional win and they’ll look to do the same thing on Friday. The returning experience of having most of that roster back from a year ago and this group knowing what it takes to win a sectional game bodes well for Southmont.
“This group is one of the most experienced teams we’ve had in quite some time,” Hannum said. “A lot of these guys have played a lot of downs and we’re going to rely heavily on that experience coming off of last year. It’ll will come down to how ready we are to go out and play on Friday. There are some obstacles with it being Fall Break and if we’re mentally ready to go then I like our chances.”
The winner between Southmont and North Knox will get the winner of South Vermillion and the No. 1 team in Class 2A in the Linton-Stockton Miners next week.
Things get underway at 7 pm from New Market and you can listen to a live broadcast of the game on True Country 106.3 WCDQ as Billy R and Codey Emerson will bring you the call.
