Phoenix are home Friday with new opponent

The Sonoraville High School football team will hold its final tune-up game Friday night when they hold their 2021 home opener against Fannin County.

Originally, the Phoenix, which are 1-0 on the year, were scheduled to travel to Summerville to face Chattooga High School this Friday, but word came down over the weekend that the Indians had to cancel.

So Sonoraville fifth-year head coach Denver Pate and his staff immediately went to work on finding a replacement game because didn’t want to go three weeks between games and they were able to pick up Fannin County, which resides in 2-A Region 6 along with Gordon Central and Rome Model, whom the Phoenix have beaten and scrimmaged.

For the Phoenix, the game against the Rebels will be their only one in a three-week span as they were off last week and will be off next week before they begin 3-A Region 6 action Friday, Sept.17th.

Pate’s team will also be looking to go into Region play unbeaten and a win over the Rebels would make them 2-0 with their eight Region games filling out the remainder of the schedule.

The Phoenix come into Friday’s game wanting to continue to fine tune their offense, although it has looked like a well-oiled machine at times in their scrimmages and in their seasonopening 21-0 road win nearly two weeks ago over Model HS in Rome.

The Phoenix scored all their points in the first half and moved the ball all game long against the Blue Devils to the tune of 398 yards in total offense, but five turnovers prevented them from crossing the goal line a couple more times.

The Red, White, and Black had pretty decent balance with 232 yards passing and another 166 rushing as junior running back Zach Lyles had an outstanding opening night with 197 yards in total offense on only a dozen touches.

He ran for 105 yards on just 10 carries