Armchair Quarterback: Pioneers a legitimate contender
The Warren County Pioneers are for real, falling just an extra point short of knocking off Fayetteville in The Pit Friday night.
Whether they were saying it or not, a lot of people were waiting until the Lincoln County game to decide whether the Pioneers were as good as they looked in the first two games of the season. The Pioneers, as we know, crushed Bradley Central 34-12 and then beat DeKalb 50-6 the next week. However, these were both games against teams who won’t likely be competing for playoff spots this year.
The Falcons, on the other hand, are a team which is never far from the region title, and this year is no exception. Don’t let their 56-6 opening day debacle fool you, Fayetteville has a good squad this year. By the way, the team which handed the Falcons the trashing in the Pit, took it on the chin this week 36-35 against Ravenwood.
Actually, the Falcons and The Pit have taken on almost mythical qualities as people across the state look at the three-time state champions as a smaller version of Title Town. So, for the Pioneers to go in there and force them to overtime shows a team which is for real. You don’t just get lucky and come from behind 13-0 in the second half against a team like the Falcons.
It’s one thing to hold a lead, it’s another to summon the will and desire and make the plays necessary to come from behind against a playoff-caliber team on the road. Not only does this ability get you respect from your fans, it also makes you dangerous.
When you think about it, the turnaround the Pioneers have seen so far is astonishing. Sure, I’ve seen good teams collapse the next year following a mass departure of seniors, but I can’t really say I’ve seen a team, winless for almost four consecutive years like the Pioneers, jump up in one season to challenge for the district. Generally, an improvement like this in high school football is gradual, kind of like Cookeville built up its squad to the top of our region.
Talking straight here, I heard several people saying after the wins the first two weeks, that would be it for the Pioneers this year. I was a bit more optimistic, hoping quietly for a four-seed playoff berth. What we saw at Fayetteville changes everything expectation-wise. Now we’ve seen they can play with anybody.
However, this week at Sparta, which is coming off a 34-6 trashing of Walker Valley after being thrashed themselves by Cookeville 35-6 the week before, will be a great barometer for the team. Sparta is up this year and they have a big running back who will test the Pioneers. Failure in White County would not bode well for the rest of the season but a big win would be the catapult into the rest of the road trip.
Even though their effort in Fayetteville was the brightest point in Warren County football in 15 years, yes, even bigger than the streak ending, there’s nothing which replaces the taste of victory. That’s something the Pioneers need to feed off of during their extended schedule away from home. Sure, the fans are traveling in mass and wearing the red, but there’s nothing like home cooking.
The bottom line is there can be no letdown at Sparta, and yes, the Warriors are dangerous this year. The season is too short and the Pioneers are too close to actually making an impact on the region level. They play the way they did against the Falcons this Friday, and they come home with a win, plain and simple.