Northside vs HOCO: Both battling for third seed

Last week the Northside Eagles (3-6) were on the cusp of upsetting No.1 Lee County but fell short, losing 20-14. That made it back-to-back weeks where the Eagles were just shy of overthrowing a ranked team in their classification (6A) and the region.

Two weeks ago, Northside lost to Valdosta 14-0. Though the two games resulted in losses, they were very different compared to the blowouts from teams earlier in the year. Ever since the bye week that followed a 63-14 loss to Colquitt County, the Eagles games have been much closer.

“The way we’ve practiced, I think I’d go all the way back to that,” said Northside head coach Chad Alligood about the difference between the past few weeks compared to earlier in the season. “We’ve went back to a more physical practice, more demanding practice than maybe we had at the beginning of the year. Sometimes as a coach you think you’re doing some things to help the kids but I may have been doing some things to hinder us. But our kids are hard nosed and physical. I think we changed it the weekend (after) Colquitt by how we practiced and I think it’s shown in how we play on Friday nights.”

Northside is now 0-2 in the region with this week being their final regular season game. This week they face county and Region 1 rival, Houston County (5-4).

The Houston County Bears are also 0-2 in Region 1 after losing to Valdosta 31-14 last week.

“We’ve lost two weeks in a row to two really good football teams. They’ve got really good players, coaches and our good players have to match their good players, we’ve got to play better,” said Houston County head coach Ryan Crawford. “We’ve got some guys injured, but it doesn’t matter. We’ve got to do a better job of matching the (opponent) and not giving up big plays. (The loss) was disheartening, but we have another week to flush it, move on and go play a big game next week back at home.”

The game on Friday was much closer than the score indicated, but a big third quarter by Valdosta took out the Bears.

This week’s game will determine who’s last in Region 1 -6A for playoff seeding, so both teams will come in looking to take the W home.

The game is Friday, Nov. 13 at Freedom Field with kickoff at 7:30 p.m.

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