Trojans-Vikings renew old rivalry

GAINESVILLE - The Region 7-AAA rivalries don't stop this week for the East Hall and North Hall football teams.

Except that they play each other this time. The two teams meet Friday night at The Brickyard in their annual battle for northern Hall County supremacy.

Hopefully it will live up to recent rivalry games. But a young, inexperienced East Hall team (1-1, 1-1) will have to recover from a nightmare 56-7 loss to bitter rival Gainesville last week.

"It got out of hand a little but we helped Gainesville out a lot by turning the ball over and making a lot of mistakes. How the young guys respond will tell us a lot about how things will go (Friday night)," East Hall coach Tim Marchman said.

North Hall (2-0, 2-0) is coming off a 20-7 win over White County, but you couldn't tell it from listening to coach Bob Christmas after he reviewed tapes of the game.

"We had turnovers, poor execution and a lot of penalties. That has got to change for us to win games," Christmas said. "Except for winning, there was very little positive to get out of it."

On White County's opening drive of the second half, for instance, the Trojans committed 55 yards in penalties alone. They had more than 150 yards in penalties for the game.

"That's a record for any team of mine and it's not something I'm real proud to have. The bottom line is that this week we have to get focused," Christmas said.

And despite the Gainesville score, Christmas said he's convinced the Vikings will come to play.

"East Hall is a very good team and the Gainesville score is not indicative of how good East Hall is. They are by far the best team we've faced so far this year."

Running backs T.J. Pitts, Michael Christmas, fullback Beau Whitemire and quarterback Corey Hutchins leads a potent North Hall attack.

Marchman said they too will have to improve to have a shot at winning.

"We have a very young team and right now we're not tackling very well, we're not playing technique very well so we have a lot to work on," Marchman said. "They're offense is very explosive and we have to start growing up and progressing."

And, they'll have to face the Trojans without starting quarterback Jamie Evans, who is out with a knee injury and did not practice all week.

"Jamie is one of the few players we had returning with varsity experience so we'll miss him and his experience and skills and ability," Marchman said.