Volunteers proud of season
Starkville Academy’s 2021 football season could have gone one of two ways.
After five games, the Volunteers slipped to a 2-3 record with a 30-0 loss to Heritage Academy.
The players at Starkville Academy could have thrown in the towel at that point, but instead they dug in their heels and kept fighting.
The Vols won four of the last five games of the regular season to make the MAIS Class 5A playoffs and defeated Lamar School in the first round.
Even though Starkville Academy’s season came to an end last week with a 31-12 loss to Heritage in the second round, head coach Chase Nicholson said he was “proud of the season” and what was accomplished.
“I thought the guys played so hard,” Nicholson said. “There was plenty of adversity early. We were 2-3 at some point and lost to Heritage during all that. Lesser teams and lesser kids would have found excuses, but our guys didn’t. We found excuses to get better. They went to work and went on a great run right there. We played better, got better and we had a whole lot of fun doing it. I think you can ask any one of these guys and they would say it was fun. We played some really good football and played some good teams along the way. It’s a great season.”
The Vols came together as a family, which is the type of culture that was built within the program since Jeff Terrell was the head coach.
Nicholson said the reason why it hurts so much to have a season come to an abrupt end is because of the relationships with players and assistant coaches.
”You preach family,” Nicholson said. “We are family. We fight, we fuss and we cry. We win together, we lose together and we learn together. It’s the things you want to do as a family. To see it have to come to an end is unfortunate and that happens, but it’s part of the growing process and part of learning.
Acceptance is part of what these seniors will experience throughout this year. Hopefully it makes next year sweeter for these juniors and seniors to be.”
One of the most valuable seniors for Starkville Academy was quarterback Randall Futral.
Futral went over the 1,000-yard mark in rushing for the season during the playoff game at Heritage. He finished with 1,003 yards on 129 carries with seven touchdowns and also completed 91-of-221 pass attempts for 1,446 yards with 14 scores.
“That’s the first time I had done that so it’s nice to accomplish,” Futral said of the 1,000 yards on the ground.
Also in the rushing department, Cole Owens had 646 yards on 134 carries and Charlie Nicholas added 421 yards on 70 attempts.
Drew Williams was the leading receiver with 32 catches for 564 yards, but Brady Johnson was not far behind with 26 grabs for 452 yards. Johnson had six touchdowns and Williams added five.
Defensively, there were six Vols with 100 or more tackles with Bo Carter (134), Porter Skelton (126), Camp Overstreet (112), Colby Allen (107), Hayes Davis (103) and Flemming Archer (100).
With another season in the books, it gives Nicholson a cause to reflect on another special group of seniors.
“I’m proud of the seniors,” Nicholson said. “They left a legacy as every previous senior group does. They left a standard and have raised that standard. You say that every year, but you mean it every year for what this senior class has done as the ones before. You want the rising juniors to say we want to set that standard and that’s what they’ve done.”