Milan Turner brings his Warhawks (1-4) into tonight’s game needing a win before starting a grueling region schedule. There are several reasons not to read too much into the Veteran’s record. The red, white and blue have faced a tough non-region schedule of Northside, West Laurens, Perry , Jones County and Oconee County.
After dropping the opener to AAAAAA Northside, Coach Turner’s team got it’s lone win of the season by surprising Jones County in an overtime game in Gray, then dropped a game to rising AAAA power, Perry. The team then played well enough in a loss on the road to West Laurens and had AAA power Oconee on the ropes for the first half of the home contest.
Coach Turner is 2-1 overall when facing Houston County as Veterans coach. His team won 35-33 in 2018 and 7-2 in 2019 before getting shut out 7-0 in last year’s contest.
Key to success for Veterans: Stopping the ground game of Houston County.
Ryan Crawford’s team features a strong running attack with Simeon Askew racking up over 1100 yards on the ground. Askew needs less than 500 yards to capture the HOCO single season rushing record set by Eric O’neal in 2006 (1602 yards)
Key to success for HOCO: Contain the option attack and contain Jr. QB – Matthew Bruce.
Both teams want to play defense and control the ball, both have 1st year starters at the QB position. The team who can establish the run an complete a few play action passes down field will most likely come out on top.
Look for the kicking game to make the difference in this battle over shared ground – Freedom Field.
