Walker County teams wrap up spring drills
All three Walker County high school football programs continued spring workouts last week. Lafayette concluded its two weeks of practice with a spring game at Northwest Whitfield this past Friday night, while Gordon Lee and Ridgeland were slated to play in road scrimmages on Friday of this week.
RIDGELAND
Numbers are up in Rossville where the Panthers have been grinding it out under the watchful eye of new head coach Craig Pritchett. The former Ridgeland player and assistant coach was hired to take over the program just before the Christmas break.
“We got a lot of people,” Pritchett said in between moving from station to station last Monday. “There’s a lot of kids out, close to 90 for the spring. Some of them have been playing for a while, but some of them are brand new, and we’re excited about that and we’re trying to get them in the right places.
“But they’re working hard out here in the heat. Unfortunately, we only have a couple more days left before we play.”
Ridgeland’s spring session will conclude this Friday night with a scrimmage at Gordon Central High School, starting at 7:30 p.m.
“We’re really just focusing on trying to find the right fit for people and find where people can help us (position-wise) to help us fill out the depth chart,” he added. “That’s really our goal for the whole spring.
“(The goal) is not necessarily to go down and have a great game and win against Gordon Central, but it’s about looking at all these kids and finding out who’s going to be able to help us, get them into the right spots, and get them some work.”
Ridgeland is changing classifications starting this fall. The Panthers will be with both of its Walker County neighbors in a reconfigured Region 6-AAA. Ridgeland had been playing in Region 7-AAAA with Heritage, Northwest Whitfield and others, before getting permission from the GHSA to drop down.
GORDON LEE
In Chickamauga, the Trojans went 5-6 a season ago, earning a spot in the state playoffs. They made it tough on Region 8 champion Washington-wilkes deep into the third quarter before the Tigers pulled away for a 28-7 win.
“The biggest thing is working through some growing pains and trying to find some leaders,” fourth-year head
coach Josh Groce said. “We’re hoping that with two weeks of spring practice we’ll have some kids step up.”
Gordon Lee had 51 players dressed out on the field last Monday afternoon, although several probable starters and other key contributors were still busy with other spring sports as the baseball team, the track team and the golf team were still deep in the postseason during the time
of this writing.
Groce said recognizing kids that can play and contribute on Friday nights would also be important this spring as the school is set to move up two classes this upcoming season.
“We’re hoping to find some depth,” he added. “We’re going to need that depth to play Class AAA football. We’ve got a lot of kids playing other sports right now
and we’re missing some of our key players, but we really need to find depth, so this is a great opportunity.
“We’re looking all 11 positions on offense and defense. We’re looking for kids that can play everywhere.”
Gordon Lee will be in Region 6-AAA this year alongside local rivals Lafayette, LFO, Ringgold and Ridgeland, in addition to Adairsville, Bremen and Coahulla Creek.
It will be the first time the school has ever ventured above Class AA. That twoyear stint in Class AA lasted just one reclassification cycle (2014 and 2015) before the Trojans dropped back down to Class A.
Gordon Lee will join Chattooga for a three-team scrimmage at Valley Head High School in Alabama this Friday night, starting at 6 p.m. Gordon Lee will play two 12-minute quarters against the host school and two quarters against the Indians before Chattooga and Valley Head close out the night.
LAFAYETTE
Now in their second season under head coach Andy Scott, the Ramblers are looking to improve on last season’s record and compete for the playoffs in a newlook Region 6-AAA.
“Our focus the entire spring has really been on fundamentals, blocking and tackling, and learning our offense and defense,” Scott said last Monday. “I thought we played well last year. We lost some really tough games, but if you look at every game we lost, there were opportunities to win. We’re just hoping to not repeat ourselves on that again (this fall).”
Scott said there wasn’t one specific area or position that they were concentrating on during the spring and that they were excited to see an increase in numbers from last year.
“We’re very fortunate and very blessed to have a ton of kids out here,” he continued. “We finished last year with about 60, but we have about 100 out here for spring, grades 9 to 12. That’s a 40-player increase. We’ve got a ton of ninth graders and most of the kids that played last year have returned, so we’ve got really good depth.
“Now we’re just trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together to make sure everybody is where they need to be.”
Lafayette lowered the curtain on the spring with a four-quarter scrimmage at Northwest Whitfield this past Friday night. Coverage of that scrimmage can be found starting on page B4 of this publication.