Athens Warrior Football

Athens Warrior Football
Home Photos Staff Roster Schedule Sangamo Conference Contact	Athens @ Pleasant Plains The Warrior Nation invades Pleasant Plains Friday and returns to the scene of the first Warrior playoff victory in program history. They do so with a new head coach and a new cast of talent on the field. The Athens offense looks to get going behind quarterback David Hankins. Hankins has three backs that will carry the load in Sean Phifer, Shay Laager and J.P. Wingo. Look for offensive coordinator Joe Reed to shake up the playbook and get the Warrior attack rolling this week. Jeremiah Taylor needs to break out this week with some big catches to spark the Athens air assualt. Defensively the Warriors are leaning hard on Shay Laager at middle linebacker. After recording 13 tackles last week and nearly 20 carries on offense Shay was involved on a huge percentage of the plays on both sides of the ball. This week the Warriors will depend on improved play from the defensive line from the likes of John Nelson, Wyatt Freeman and J.P. Wingo. Corner Tim Bates will have his hands full with John Salvacion, the Cardinals' leading returning receiver. Look for the Warriors to improve defensively and pull a few tricks out of the bag on offense to make their case on beating Pleasant Plains. Game time is 7pm in Pleasant Plains. Pawnee 47, Athens 20 Fun game to watch tonight. Would have been a little better if Athens would have won. Pawnee is a LOAD. I don't have the numbers but the Indians can really pile up the yards on the ground. And what a line... very fundamentally sound, good blockers.... hit and drive. There were numerous pancakes out there. Got to give the Indians credit... they are gonna be tough to deal with this season. They have three excellent backs who GRIND it. Pearce, Reynolds and Schrage can bang it inside. Stan DeSart flat out has some JETS.... he gets the corner and he is gone. Zach Puckett is a MONSTER on defense and he was in on a ton of tackles. Don't look now folks but Kit Thein has another double tight end ground-gaining machine in Pawnee. These guys defended the pass very well picking off Athens QB David Hankins three times tonight and breaking up a couple others. The Warriors battled and really got the ground game going getting things rolling with Shay Laager getting 54 yards on 16 carries, sophomore Sean Phifer adding 43 yards on 12 carries and fullback JP Wingo kicking in 33 yards on 9 carries. Hankins and the passing game sputtered in the second half but the junior QB finished 11/19 for 95 yards, 2 touchdowns and the 3 picks. Sophomore slot receiver Jeremiah Taylor made some big catches on 3rd and 4th down and also was on the receiving end of a 25 yard catch and run TD pass. Brad Bayles and Lucas Brown also caught passes and from Hankins and helped the Athens passing attack go. Defensively Athens really struggled but did improve as the game wore on... Senior Shay Laager had 13+ tackles but the Warrior front line and linebackers were plagued by over pursuit of the football all night long. Pawnee ran a multitude of counters and counter-pitches to exploit that over pursuit. The Athens defense learned a hard lesson tonight about getting front line penetration and not leaving so much work for the backers and safeties to clean-up. Coach Knox has a lot to work with this week and I look for a huge improvement as Athens prepares for the Pleasant Plains Cardinals next week on the road.	Jr. David Hankins takes over at QB
		Leaders Rushing Laager - 54 yards Phifer - 43 yards Wingo - 33 yards Passing Hankins - 95 yards