AISA NOTES: Hooper Academy opens a week late; Valiant Cross opens play against Macon East at Faulkner; Edgewood betters passing attack

Coach Marty Baker and Hooper Academy will open the season on Friday against Edgewood Academy. (Diane Helms)

By TIM GAYLE

Hooper Academy’s season opener will be a week late. And probably a little more challenging.

The Colts’ season opener at Class A Coosa Valley was a COVID-19 forfeit, resulting in a 1-0 victory for Hooper. As a result, the first action of the season will take place this Friday in Elmore against AA Edgewood.

“I was ready to play that game and at least get one under our belt,” Hooper Academy coach Marty Baker said. “It’s going to be a lot tougher opening up with Edgewood than it would have been opening up with Coosa Valley. We’ll have to bring our ‘A’ game.

“They run the spread and they run it well. They’ve got two big (defensive linemen) guys that play over the guards that I’m worried about us blocking.”

Baker admitted it was a little strange watching the Wildcats’ opener against Southern in person, but at least he knows a little about his opponent this week. Edgewood, on the other hand, remains uncertain about what to expect from Hooper. 

“From that aspect, being able to scout them last Friday was good,” Baker said. “And they have nothing to go on but last year with us, but I think I still would have rather played a game.”

Baker said he learned from Coosa Valley officials last Wednesday that they would forfeit the game “and it worked out good because I had four (starters) that wouldn’t have been able to play on Friday night because of (COVID).

Those four were scheduled to be cleared on Tuesday, but will have just two days of practice for the Wildcats.

“It’s a mess,” Baker said. “I lose one every week. It puts us behind. It gives the second-team guys some time to learn and get some experience being in there, but I need the first-string guys all the time. When you don’t have but 23, you need them there.”

Valiant Cross opens play against Macon East

In its second year of varsity football, Valiant Cross will open the season against Macon East on Thursday. They have a new venue for home games.

After playing home games at Cramton Bowl last year, Frederick Brock and the Knights will play games at Faulkner’s John Mark Stallings Field.

“Faulkner has a great facility and we are excited to play there,” Brock said. “Maybe some day we are back at Cramton Bowl but as of now we will play at Faulkner.”

Valiant Cross was originally scheduled to play Lakeside in the opener but the game was cancelled (although not because of COVID-19). Macon East opened the season last week with a win over Lowndes Academy.

Macon East turns around ‘20 road woes

It wasn’t the kind of performance Glynn Lott was hoping to see out of his Macon East Knights, but there was still a little mini-celebration at the conclusion of the Knights’ 20-14 win at Lowndes Academy last week.

Macon East, which lost all five road games last season, opened 2021 with a win on the road.

That was the highlight for a team which sputtered on offense with turnovers and gave up too many big plays on the edge on defense.  

“In the first half, offensively, we did not play very well,” Lott said. “We had one play, maybe two, that were positive yards. We turned it over three plays in a row, so we never got any consistency going in the first half. Defensively, we played very well. I never felt like they were going to move the ball a lot on us.”

The Knights took an early 7-0 lead on a Tyler Daniels’ reception from Dalton Nickles and when Lowndes rallied to take an 8-7 lead, Macon East responded with a scoring drive on its next possession to regain the lead. Still, the strength of the team going into the season was its offensive line and Lott said there is plenty of room for improvement heading into the second week of the season. 

“We just didn’t block well,” he said. “One person would block the wrong way and that would just leave someone to come free. I think we can fix some of that. We didn’t throw the ball well as far as the lateral passing game, so that kind of hurt us.

“I thought we would be better up front than we showed. I still think we can be pretty good up front, we just haven’t shown it yet. Moving some around to different positions has caused an issue, I guess.”

Junior transfer quarterback Deonte Powell sat out Friday night’s opener after sustaining an injury in a preseason jamboree with Fort Dale Academy and Lott said Powell should return to action this week against Valiant Cross.

“We’re looking for consistency up front,” Lott said, “and improvement in our route running on offense. Defensively, we lost contain several times and that’s something we’ve been harping on this week.”

Valiant Cross wasn’t able to find a season opening game last week and will open the 2021 season this week.

“This week, we’re going into another game like the first game,” he said. “You don’t have any film, you don’t know what they’re going to do. They’ve got a new coach so you don’t know what they’re going to run on offense or defense.”

Edgewood looking for better passing game

The Widcats got the 2021 season off to a good start with a win over Southern Academy last week. The hope is to improve with a win over Hooper this week.

That might depend on continued improvement in the passing game.

Austin Champion replaced three-year starter Alex Johnson in last Friday’s first game and had a solid performance, passing for 235 yards and three TDs in a 27-0 win over Southern Academy.

He stated there were a few adjustments in the passing game prior to the season.

 “Obviously, it’ll be a little different because we’ve got a lot of new guys coming in, but I think the new guys are just as capable of succeeding as the old ones,” he said. “I think we’ll succeed a little differently than we did the past couple of years, but I think we’ll be just as efficient.”

Three of Edgewood’s four losses last season were to the eventual state champions (Crenshaw in A, Chambers in AA and Pike Liberal, a COVID-19 forfeit, in AAA) but the Wildcats will be competing in a region that includes Chambers and three other opponents that are expected to be improved from 2020. The same can be said for Edgewood, which was finding its way early last season under Michael but expects better chemistry in his second season. 

“It was probably week four or five before we were comfortable with each other, what we could do, what we couldn’t do,” coach Chad Michael said. “Midseason, we really switched some things we were doing that made us be more successful down the road. Now, we’re more comfortable with each other. I know their skills sets a lot more. They understand what I’m comfortable with and what I want to run offensively.”