WS Chronicle

Summer is coming to a close, which marks the beginning of football season.  Teams all across the county have been practicing for weeks in preparation for the upcoming year. 

Last Thursday, Aug. 10, several Forsyth County teams got their first chance to hit someone else in a different color jersey at the Mount Tabor High School Football Jamboree.

Mt. Tabor, East Forsyth, Carver, North Forsyth and Parkland were among the teams participating in the jamboree.  The point of the jamboree is to get a look at their potential starters along with seeing how their teams execute on offense and defense.

Curtis Clark, new junior varsity head coach at Parkland, said he was really just looking to see how well his team did the “little things” as far as how they line up, knowing where to go, and knowing their proper assignments.  Clark says he wants to continue using the run game heavily as they did last year but plans to also air it out from time to time as they get closer to conference play to keep defenses on their heels.

“As a whole I am looking forward to seeing my team grow together as one and have a brotherhood no one can break,” he said.  “I want them to be better than they were last year by just taking it one step at a time.  The goal is to just go 1-0 every week.”

North Forsyth is coming off of a season where they finished 4-6 and are looking to improve on that mark this year.  JV head coach Corey Stewart says they lost many of their players from last year including many of their big guys up front.  With such a young team he wants to see how they respond against a new opponent.

“I know there was going to be some good competition here so it was good that we could get the first real hitting out of the way,” Stewart said.  “We are really young with a bunch of new freshman, which is a good and bad thing.  My expectations are for us to get better every day, every game and every practice.  Then the kids will understand what it takes to be Vikings and we will go from there.”

Stewart went on to say that they are smaller upfront on both sides of the ball but had a nice influx of young athletes come out for the team this year.  He says he plans to use his new crop of athletes to exploit weaknesses in opposing defenses this year.

The Eagles of East Forsyth had somewhat of an up and down year in 2016.  They finished the year at 6-4 but were talented enough to have had a better record.  Eagle JV head coach Ronald Horton says they definitely want to improve upon last years mark by getting off to a better start than 1-4 as they did in 2016.

“To be honest with you I thought we looked pretty good for the first time going against someone in a different color jersey,” Horton said when asked about his team’s performance at the jamboree.  “I think they were a little anxious to get out there because we have been hitting each other for a couple of weeks now.  I love the energy my guys showed and I hope that continues.

“I am impressed so far, we are playing a lot of young guys that don’t have much experience so I was really pleased with how they came out and played,” he continued.  “Winning is an East Forsyth standard and it starts with coach [Todd] Willert and we try to get the guys to understand how important that is.  It doesn’t matter that we have 11 freshman out there, we have a standard we have to uphold so we have to come to work everyday to get there.”

Mt. Tabor, who went undefeated and won the JV Central Piedmont Conference title last year, looks to repeat its fortunes this season.  The players looked sharp during their play at the jamboree.  Carver, who had trouble fielding a JV team last year, has a full compliment of players.  The impact of new head coach Greg Scales looks to already have made a difference.  This year could be a change of fortunes for the better for some Forsyth County schools who did not perform well last year. Only time will tell.