Strong hosts Episcopal Collegiate aiming for 2-0 start

Strong and Episcopal Collegiate are certainly not strangers to success in football over the last decade.

The Bulldogs have a state championship to their credit and the Wildcats went 30-8 over a three-year stretch from 2013-15, culminating with a trip to the 3A state semifinals in 2014.

The last time Episcopal Collegiate visited Union County was for that semifinal clash, an 18-12 loss at Smackover.

On Friday night, the Wildcats return to Union County to take on the Bulldogs in an eight-man non-conference clash at Jerry Burson Field. Game time is set for 6 p.m.

The Wildcats (2-0) have started out of the gates quickly this season, scoring 102 points in lopsided wins over Mountain Pine and Marshall.

The Bulldogs (1-0) got off to an impressive start themselves by topping Hermitage 54-0 in their season and conference opener two weeks ago.

Strong was idle last week, and coach Sirl Wright said the mood of the team has been upbeat after the win over the Hermits.

“Always after a big win like that where a lot of people got a chance to score, especially in our case where we haven’t been lighting up the scoreboard in years past, but when you do that, it’s a morale boost,” Wright said. “Everybody is excited about practicing. Everybody is excited about doing the little things. At certain points of the sport, every football team goes through the grinding part, and it makes the grind a little bit easier when you come off a win like that.”

Wildcats coach Michael Carter also has some history with Union County schools. Back in 2015, Carter led Conway Christian to the 2A state semifinals that included a road victory at Junction City, and Wright was impressed with the Wildcats after watching them on film.

“They’re well-coached. They pay attention to detail,” he said.

Although it’s a non-conference game for the Bulldogs, Wright said the team is not treating it as such.

“A lot of the key focuses are on the bread and butter plays and execution,” Wright said. “Just getting the kids ready for conference. Mainly all of our games are conference games, but with the non-conference games, you have to treat them like conference games because you may see them again and just get better at what you do.”

Depth could also play a key role in Friday’s game.

“It’s always convenient to mirror what the other team does, and those eight-man teams that have 25 or more kids, they have a lot more bodies to choose from,” Wright said.

As far as the bye week is concerned, Wright said the Bulldogs continued to work on fundamentals while also prepping for the Wildcats.

“With the numbers that we have, just staying healthy,” Wright said. “I don’t care too much for bye weeks, but overall, you’ve got to do it. We just worked on fundamentals and prepped for the week ahead.”

Strong’s first game playing eight-man football was a great success.

The Bulldogs took a 14-0 lead at the end of the first quarter before a 26-point second quarter broke the game open.

“It was a big win,” Wright said. “Hermitage is a good team, even though the score didn’t show the reflection. I think we just hit that momentum button and just stayed on them. Our kids came out and played hard. The keys to the game were blocking and tackling, and I felt that we blocked better at the point of attack and we also had more open-field tackles where they would miss in those critical situations.”

If the Bulldogs are to slow down the Wildcats, Wright said staying focused, particularly on defense, would be crucial.

“We’ve got to be disciplined,” Wright said. “They run a lot of gadget-type things. They prey on undisciplined teams, so that’s a big thing. You’ve got to be disciplined and not jump offsides because they do a lot of freeze calls and just execute. No matter if it’s offense, do your job, don’t try to do anybody else’s job, just do your job.

“Defensively, stay aggressive, know your assignment and don’t try to overdo your assignment, just make sure you do your assignment because they try to do a lot of misdirection and trick-type things. If you don’t know your assignment, they can get you out of your momentum. We’ve got to be sound on defense and execute on offense.”

Upcoming Events