Hartselle begins road to 2016 season with strong showing vs. Lee

Caleb Suggs

Hartselle Enquirer

It’s still officially three months give or take before the 2016 football season actually begins but for the fans of the Hartselle Tigers, they’ll take any football action that they can get. So, when the Hartselle Tigers took to the field of J.P. Cain stadium the fans were buzzing with excitement. Officially, this game vs. the Generals of Lee Huntsville was just an exhibition but that didn’t stop the Tigers from treating it like a real game.

The Tigers would get the ball rolling early as the defense forced a three and out on Lee’s first possession thanks in part to a five-yard tackle for loss by Andrew Nuss on the first play. The offense would take the ball and drive right down the field thanks to the  nice passing by Trevor Oakes and the running of Taylor Easterling. Hartselle would cap off the drive with a 10-yard touchdown pass on third down from Oakes to Seth Garner to put them up 7-0.

The offense would keep up the good work two drives later as Oakes would find Garrett Wade for a huge pass down to the Lee 20. After a 10 yard pass to Garner, Oakes would find Wade again for another 10 yard touchdown to put Hartselle up 14-0 early in the second quarter. The Tigers would get the ball back quickly and once again take the ball right down the field to the Lee 20 thanks to good runs from Keondre Swopes and good passes by Oakes. However, the Tigers drive would stall and they would be forced to settle for a Beau Nosal field goal to give them a 17-0 lead halfway through the second quarter.

Meanwhile, the Tigers defense didn’t need to worry about breaking because they wouldn’t even bend. The defense forced three and out after three and out to put Lee’s offensive stats in the negative column. Nosal would add another field goal with a minute left to go to give Hartselle a 20-0 lead.

Lee would manage to get their only first down of the first half when they broke a big run to the Hartselle five-yard line with 37 seconds left. The Generals would try to bang it in but the Tigers would stuff them three straight times to keep it 20-0 at halftime.

In the second half most of the starters would exit the game to give way for the younger guys in this spring jamboree. Lee would manage to get two scores on the board but Hartselle would still stay way ahead. Adam Hampton would get two scores on the ground for the Tigers while backup quarterback Luke Godsey would come up with some nice passes to Mac Meyer and Chandler Briggs among others. Freshmen Austin Hardin would get the last score of the night as the ran the ball in for the touchdown. Hartselle would take the exhibition win 41-14.

After the game, head coach Bob Godsey was pleased with his team’s showing but knows there’s still a lot more work to do. “It was a good start but we still have a long way to go” Godsey said “We had a good spring and things ran smoothly tonight but we still have guys that need to step up.”

It’s hard to base how a team will look on a spring game that’s three months before the season but early indicators seem to point in the positive direction. New starting quarterback Trevor Oakes seemed to fill in at his new role nicely as he led the Tigers on successful drives and accounted for both of their first half touchdowns. “I thought he looked unsure in the pocket once” Godsey said “Other than that It looked like he was pretty comfortable in the pocket.” The Tigers stayed consistent on offense as they scored on four of their five drives in the first half. “I think a big thing was we were able to sustain drives” Godsey said “we had a some big plays here and there but mostly we just drove the ball down the field which helps not only your offense but your defense as well.”

Defensively the Tigers weren’t on the field long which means they played at a top level.  The first string unit only allowed one first down in the first half and kept the Generals in the negative column until under a minute to go. “I feel like we should be pretty good on defense” Godsey said, “We tried a few different thing in our scheme that’s not a huge change but it fits our personnel.” Godsey would continue. “I think we created some depth in the defense this spring” Godsey said “I feel like we have more guys that we can put on the field.”

The 2016 season is still a good ways away but the Hartselle Tigers definitely got the ball rolling in a positive way.