West End (0-1) at Collinsville (1-0)
Last week: Susan Moore 28, West End 27; Collinsville 41, Cedar Bluff 24
Last meeting: West End 29, Collinsville 14 (1991)
Series record: West End 2, Collinsville 2
By Gene Stanley/Correspondent
Kyle Davis wants to use his team’s speed to wear down the bigger Collinsville athletes in the Patriot’s Class 2A, Region 7 opener this week.
“Man for man, they’re bigger than us at about every position,” the West End coach said. “They’ve got a lot of size up front. We want to use their size against them.”
The Patriots used a speedy game plan against Susan Moore and it almost worked to break their 12-game losing streak.
“The kids were hurt by the loss,” Davis said. “The community has been telling them how proud they were, but at the end of the day a loss is a loss. This team doesn’t want to play hard to finally lose.”
Davis said that the Susan Moore game could be motivationally inspiring to West End, if the scenario presents itself again.
The Patriots scored to take the lead toward the end of the fourth quarter, only to see the lead slip away.
“If we execute our game plan and do what we’re supposed to do, we have a chance,” Davis said. “I think we had a good plan against Susan Moore, both offensively and defensively. We’ve just got to execute better.”
Last week against Susan Moore, Hunter Grant rushed 22 times for 253 yards and three touchdowns and completed 10-of-15 passes for 151 yards and a score.
Jordan Malin rushed for 60 yards on 10 carries, while Dustin Goodwin caught six passes for 56 yards.
Brett McCurry had 13 tackles, followed by Tyler Moody and Nick Cline with 10 each and Malin and Tristan Garmony with eight each.