In review of the Athens Academy high school football team’s perfect regular season, it was nothing short of historic and astounding. The Spartans remained determined and unfazed to succeed despite two changes.
First, the Spartans had a smaller team this year with forty-two players, thirty less than the seventy-man roster two seasons ago. This shortage of men meant that all JV and Varsity players had to stay on the field more in practices and games, many of whom played on offense and Defense. To highlight the Spartan’s triumph over this hurdle, The JV team achieved a perfect season with only thirteen players.
The endurance required for the whole JV team was satisfied by grueling three-hour practices Monday through Thursday during the summer, which Head Coach Alexander notes he does by having the players “train and run a lot, with a lot of snaps”. Every single player on the team was an essential component for not just JV games, but also to give the starters an accurate view of their opponent’s plays each practice during scrimmages.
Most importantly, the summer practices and daily scrimmages paid off as the Varsity team won out with a perfect regular season. They accomplished this, despite Athens Academy being moved into a new region and larger classification of all private schools 1A-3A, as opposed to the exclusively 1A classification that they were in for forty-five years. Although the Spartans faced new larger schools like Rabun County, with double the students, Athens Academy trampled fearlessly over them with a final score of 34 to 28.
Athens Academy won some nail-biters that were a pleasure to watch, keeping the fans on the edge of their seats. For example, Junior Tucker Rhodes said “Commerce’s 29-28 win was the team’s best performance because we tackled as a team.”
Coach Alexander agreed with Tucker, adding that it was essential because it was “the first region game and confirmed to the players that we have a good football team”. The Spartans edged out the win with senior Bryan McClendon’s last-second run into the end zone. Their perfect season won the team another regional championship, which Junior Tucker Rhodes expected, saying “We worked very hard during the summer, could just tell it was coming”.
Although the season was cut short by their close loss to Aquinas High School, the Spartan’s perfect regular season sends a very promising note for the future. Coach Alexander is very excited for next season, saying that he and the players are already thinking about their first game finishing the trilogy vs Aquinas, as each team won in their two games this year.
