NASHVILLE, AR- The non-conference schedule gauntlet of the Charleston Tigers football season concluded on Friday night with a long trip to Nashville to play the Class 4A Scrappers. Charleston, a young team who lost a large number of senior starters from last year’s 3A championship team, showed good progress again this week. The young Tigers are growing up, and now, they look ahead to next Friday’s conference opener.
Charleston will return to Alumni Field on Friday to host the Greenland Pirates in the 3A-1 conference opener for both schools. Kickoff is slated for 7 p.m.
The conference portion of the Tigers’ schedule is what head coach Ricky May and his staff have been pointing to all season. While the Tigers want to win every game they play, they know that it is the conference schedule that determines who wins a both a conference championship and who goes on to play in the state playoffs. So for Charleston, development of their players and remaining healthy has been the true objective throughout the non-conference schedule.
RNN Sports talked with Coach May following the Tigers’ narrow 26-21 loss to the Scrappers who were 4A semifinalists in the state playoffs a year ago. Coach May commented on his team’s progress by saying, “They are growing up. On the last drive, we had 8 sophomores on offense and scored. We had our chances; they stopped us on 4th and goal on two drives. One was questionable whether we scored or not. Looked like he was in. We didn’t turn the ball over all night, so that was great. Our kids felt good about how they played Friday night. We had no turnovers and penalties weren’t bad. Our quarterback had a really good game and the receivers played well.”
Charleston’s sophomore quarterback, Carter Little, played his best game of the year so far, making good decisions on passes that included two touchdown passes to teammates Maddix Terry and Deegan Todd.
So, the young Tigers will play their first varsity game in conference on Friday when they play the Greenland Pirates. Charleston could take another big step with their young team, making them a tough out in conference play as the season progresses. Charleston has conference games against Greenland and Cedarville over the next two weeks before they host Mansfield in a big 3A-1 showdown at Alumni Field on October 6.
Watch for our preview of the Charleston vs. Greenland game this week in the RNN Logan / Franklin County weekly newspaper! If you have not yet subscribed, just go to residentnewsnetwork.com/subscribe and sign-up for your weekly newspaper with the best River Valley sports coverage in Western Arkansas!
