Eagles land at Nunley tonight – Shelbyville coming in after 2OT loss last week

The Pioneers hope to keep their early season success going tonight, with a home non-region matchup against a Shelbyville squad which comes to town on the heels of a heart-breaking loss a week ago.

The Golden Eagles, who last faced the Pioneers in 2002, winning 36-6, suffered through a winless campaign a year ago, but look to be resurgent this fall under second-year head coach Jason Hardy.

Nine defensive starters and eight offensive regulars from last year’s squad are back, including senior quarterback Julian Haile, who rushed for three touchdowns and threw for three more in last week’s 43-42, double-overtime loss to visiting coffee County.

In that contest, which was tied 28-all at the end of regulation, the Golden Eagles scored and kicked an extra point in the second overtime, but Coffee County’s bid for the win was successful as they answered the TD and added a 2-point conversion.

Haile had TD runs of 5, 1 and 10 yards, the final score coming in the overtime period, and passed for 52- and 5-yard touchdowns to Emmanuel Andrews, who finished with 125 receiving yards and over 100 more on kickoff returns. Quinn Marable hauled in the other TD catch from 10 yards out.

Hardy expressed his pride in the Eagles’ effort in a post-game interview with Gary Johnson of the Shelbyville Times-Gazette.

‘Our guys played with every gut, heart and soul they had. We were just one play short,’ he said. ‘That’s football for you. You’ve got to make a play. We had opportunities, they had opportunities and this was just a great football game.

‘Right now I’m just so happy with our guys even though it didn’t end up the way we wanted. I can tell you one thing, Shelbyville football is back.’

Defensively, the Eagles allowed 428 rushing yards to their Red Raider foes.

Last season Shelbyville went 0-10, including losses to Region 3-5A combatants Coffee County and Franklin County. Their last win came in the final week of 2005, when they defeated Lawrence County 21-7 to avoid a winless campaign.

Pioneer head coach Chris Madewell, whose team opened its own 2007 season last week with a 24-0 win over DeKalb County, said he hoped the Pioneers could work on polishing their offensive and defensive gameplans leading into tonight’s game, and maintain the energy they showed in their win over the Tigers.

‘I felt like we came out and played hard the whole game (last week), and that was big,’ he said. ‘Especially at the beginning of the game, there was a lot of enthusiasm and excitement.

‘We made some mistakes we’re going to work to correct heading into (tonight), but a lot of that comes down to not having too many scrimmages in the preseason. We want to fine-tune some things, put in a few more wrinkles to our offense, and keep playing with enthusiasm and energy on the defensive side. If we can keep doing that against Shelbyville, and the rest of the season, we can be successful.’

Kickoff tonight at Nunley Stadium is scheduled for 7 p.m.