Junior high football is a rare form of transition for many players, coaches, and programs. Some young men are turning into big and strong athletes at an early age while others may still have the same build as they did in little league. Their mental capacity, well if you’ve had a preteen boy you already know how scatterbrained thy can be. It’s a rough go for coaches to put together the jigsaw puzzle of raw talent, but sometimes things seem to fit together just right. The upcoming 2022 Mansfield Junior High team may very well be that perfect fit.
In early 2021, the Tigers were written off by a lot of fans and opponents. They fell to 0-1 in conference play with a big loss to Hackett to start off their season and lost again mid-season to the eventual conference champions, the Charleston Tigers. That was it though. Those two losses were the only conference whoopsies for the JR Tigers as Mansfield finished with a 5-2 conference record. The 5 conference wins earned them the program’s first 3A-1 Conference Runner-Up trophy in over a decade. The JR Tigers were a well-balanced team on both sides of the ball last season as they hung up 171 points on conference teams while only giving up 122 points. The 2021 team rolled behind seasoned freshmen like Jeremy Strozier, Trey Powell, Dakota Deer, Toby Towe, and a slew of other skilled upperclassmen who were key factors to the teams success. That was last year though. Those talented athletes have since moved on to the SR High ranks leaving pieces of the puzzle missing for the upcoming 2022 JR High team.
While the 2021 freshmen will be missed, the Tigers still have plenty of ammo to reload with. If you wonder what the definition of “plenty of ammo” is, well for starters, the JR High had roughly 14 upcoming freshmen in offseason workouts, most of which had ample field time last season. That’s a solid number to start spring practices with and those numbers will surely grow over the summer. Tack on a super talented 2021 group of 7th graders who are moving up into the JR High ranks and it’s easy to see how the Tigers could be viable contenders for the conference title in 2022. Mansfield’s offense will return nearly every starting offensive lineman from last season along with their entire stable of running backs. The Tigers defense will be filling in a few more holes than the offense will in 2022, but with the roster already larger at this time of year than most previous seasons, the bodies and talent shouldn’t be hard to find. This is a hungry group of young men who have grown up together since 3rd Grade football and have an impeccable team chemistry. With those pieces in hand, the picture of the puzzle is beginning to look clearer.
Although Mansfield has most of its puzzle pieces available, there are a few shaky areas that could throw the Tigers puzzle off the table this season. This is the 3A-1 and it’s a known fact that every team in this conference are contenders from little league to SR High football and every level in-between. The schedule won’t help the JR Tigers with home-field advantage as Mansfield is slated to play three home games and four away games this season. Mansfield will travel to Greenland, Charleston, Hackett, and Lavaca this fall and each of those venues are tough territories to win at. It’s been quite some time since Mansfield has beaten Charleston at the JR High level and playing at Hackett in any sport is never an easy task. Home game-wise, the Tigers will host West Fork, Cedarville, and the Booneville Bearcats who will return to the 3A-1 this season. Even with all the numbers, talent, and chemistry that the JR High may have, there’s still not going to be any guaranteed W’s for the Tigers.
The puzzle is still in a bunch of pieces on the table, but all the pieces are accounted for and the outline has been put together. There’s size, speed, experience, roster numbers, chemistry, and a strong hunger to win. Then there’s the bonus of having coaches Tim Cothran, Keith Stovall, Layton Robinson, and Daniel Martin at the helm piecing this exceptional puzzle together. There’s nothing puzzling about the fact that the 2022 JR High Tigers have the opportunity of being the becoming of something special for the Mansfield football program.
