Hawks end preseason, turn attention to Faith
From Shorter reports
For the past three weeks, they have been preparing to begin a new season.
This week, the 2015 campaign arrives for the Shorter Hawks, who have officially closed out their preseason workouts and can now turn their full attention to their opener Saturday when the Hawks host the University of Faith Glory Eagles at Barron Stadium.
“We’ve gotten better,” head coach Phil Jones told the team after a twohour workout Friday at the school’s Ben Brady Field. “We’re starting to look good but we know we just have to get better.
“We want to win,” he added with a raised voice, a sentiment loudly echoed by the players that surrounded him at midfield.
Jones was so pleased with how the Hawks have remained focused and turned in spirited, hardworking workouts that he gave the team Saturday and today off to recoup and rest, much to the delight of the players who have had just one off day since reporting on Aug. 7.
Shorter’s opener against the Glory Eagles provides the Hawks with a muchneeded measuring stick as they head into perhaps the program’s most challenging schedule ever with the team in action for 11 consecutive weeks.
Saturday’s game is the first of four straight outof-conference tests that include back-to-back road showdowns with a pair of NCAA Division I FCS programs — Kennesaw State and Southeast Missouri State — prior to the start of the Hawks’ Gulf South Conference slate.
Following their opener against Faith, the Hawks embark on a rugged fourgame road stretch that begins Sept. 12 when Shorter heads to Jefferson City, Tennessee to face perennial Division II power Carson-Newman.
Shorter returns to Barron Stadium on Oct. 10 to host Delta State, visits West Alabama on Oct. 17, plays a Thursday night game in Rome against Valdosta State on Oct. 22 and closes our October heading to Melbourne, Florida, on the 31st to face Florida Tech.
North Alabama arrives in Rome on Nov. 7 for the Hawks’ final home game of the season, and on Nov. 14 Shorter takes a short ride to Carrollton to meet West Georgia — which advanced to the NCAA Division II national semifinals last year — to close out the 11-game slate.