Gordon Central wraps up spring workouts

Spring football has wrapped up for Gordon Central.

And what a spring it was, culminating Thursday night when the new-andhopefully-improved Warriors hosted Utopian Academy, a 2A school in its first year in the GHSA, in the spring game at Ratner Stadium. (Details of that game were not available at press time).

The game was also a homecoming of sort with members of the Gordon Central 1995 team being recognized and that 1995 team, which featured current Calhoun offensive line coach and former NFL player Barry Hall, made it to the Class A quarterfinals before their season ended in what is still one of the deepest playoff runs in school history.

And it was an event overall with a lot of good food on hand to go with the large crowd as that is exactly what new head coach Lenny Gregory is attempting to do — turn every single Gordon Central football game into a big event.

That starts with putting a product the public can embrace on the field and the Warriors took big strides in doing just that with their recent spring workouts.

Gregory now has a podcast and the man who turned 7A Collins Hill into a state champion powerhouse says he was encouraged by what he saw from his players.

“Our kids are giving a tremendous effort,” he said. “And that’s what it’s going to take. We’ve just got to keep chopping wood. Keep believing and keep working hard.

“I think we’ve made tremendous strides in kind of a shortened off-season program because we didn’t start working with the kids until the first week of February. But I’ve seen their bodies change. I’ve seen their attitudes change. We’ve gotten bigger, stronger, faster, so I’m excited about playing Utopian and seeing our kids compete.”

The team will be built around a junior class that has a lot of experience with athlete Matthew Hammock, athlete Jayden Jones, lineman Jim Traylor, and lineman Isaac Henderson the leaders in that group and Hammock’s talents were fully on display with him being named the team’s MVP during the spring.

And Hammock is a difference-maker for the Warriors if he stays healthy. And fresh. This guy hasn’t come off

The team is also looking for a few good linemen with key losses like Preston Gilbert and Dawson Young, who were also three-year starters. Last year, new linemen like Carson McEntyre, Dirk Junkins and Memphis Polley stepped into starting roles as varsity rookies on offense and it looks like there will be some new faces in the trenches again this year.

Defensively, the Big Red have just four starters returning and are also looking to replace tackling machine Tristan Mullins, who led whatever Region the team was in the last two years in tackles, registering nearly 225 rundowns over that time, including 115 last year alone.

In fact, the defense seems to have a lot of positions available with the team actually losing its top four tacklers with besides Mullins, Zach McAfee, Young and Bryant graduating.

Junior linebacker Ty Brown is back in the field after registering 45 tackles last year and other top defenders like Bram Carter and T.J. Oliver will also be back.

Sometimes moving up a division can be too much, at least right off the bat, for a sports program, but the Phoenix held their own last year as the newcomers to Region 7-4A, making the playoffs as the fourth seed.

No one at the school hid their feelings last year about moving into a six-team region, even if it was a higher classification, because they simply did the numbers.

In a six-team league, four teams or 66 percent of the teams get into the postseason. In a nine-game Region 6-3A like they previously resided in, four teams or 44 percent of them all get to have more than a regular season.

So the Phoenix took their chances against five biggerthan-them schools in the 4A ranks and at the end of the regular season, they got to keep playing because they finished their first year in the revamped district with a 3-2 record and the respect of all their new playmates.

Now they are looking for the players that will help them duplicate or even better what they did last year against pretty much all-new competition that won’t be so new this time around.

So yeah, Sonoraville may do things a little different in the spring, but the goal is still the same for the fall and that is too win as many football games as they can.