Perry looking for fourth straight win over Veterans Friday
Perry (2-1) heads to Freedom Field Friday to face rival Veterans (0-3) in our Game of the Week.
PERRY, Georgia – (41NBC/WMGT) – For Week Five of the high school football season, 41NBC’s Game of the Week will take place at Freedom Field, as the Perry Panthers make the eight-mile trek to face the Veterans Warhawks.
The Perry Panthers (2-1) are riding high off their AAAA State Championship run last season and are hungry for more. Perry gets ready to take on a rival and familiar opponent for a second straight game after losing to Houston County two weeks ago, 31-17. Head Coach Kevin Smith is in his eighth season with the Panthers, and he has only improved the team more and more each season. Smith is the only coach in Perry history to take the Panthers to not only a state championship, but also multiple region titles as well as double-digit win totals the last three seasons.
Coming off their bye week, the Panthers’ offense is averaging 34 points a game on offense. They are now rested and ready to take on a Veterans squad they have beaten the last three seasons, including a 49-41 win in Perry last year. The winner of this game will break the 7-7 tie in the all-time series that dates back to 2010.
Coach Smith and the Panthers have tasted success, but Perry knows it needs to stay focused and hungry every game if it wants to achieve its goals.
“Our philosophy around here is it’s a new season, it’s a new team,” Coach Smith said at Monday’s practice. “Worry about the next play. The next opponent on our schedule is the most important opponent on our schedule. We try not to look ahead. We try to put the focus on us getting better as a football team and put the work in. It’s like that old saying about watering the roots: ‘You keep watering those roots, you are going to get to that fruit.’ We got a little bit of fruit already, but there’s a lot more work to get to the fruit we want to get to.”
Smith says the team’s goal is to win the state championship.
“We know in order to get back there, we got to win each week, we got to win each play,” he said. “We know it’s not ‘if’ adversity is going to hit, it’s ‘when’ it’s going to hit, and how are we going to react to it? That’s been the message of us just competing against each other, making each other better, so we can get back down to that next game, and hopefully that last game.”
Perry and Veterans meet Friday at 7:30.
Catch live pregame coverage during 41NBC News at 5, 5:30 and 6 p.m. Don’t miss highlights from our Game of the Week, and others, on this Friday’s edition of The End Zone during 41NBC News at 11.
