There is excitement in the air as a new Indianola Academy football season is officially set to kick off this Friday night.
Taking a trip to Tri-County Academy in Flora, the Colonels will be opening their season at 7 p.m. in challenging fashion.
In addition to playing the Rebels for the first time in IA history, the District 2-4A Colonels will be pitted against a District 3-4A team which is a preseason pick as the 4A champion.
According to IA Head Coach Tommy Nester, Tri-County Academy is “good, big, and strong. They have 18 starters back and this will be a big challenge. But our kids will play hard as they always do, and we will get better every week.”
The Rebels will be bent on improving their 2020 season which resulted in a 7-4 record, their lowest number of victories in a season since the 2015 campaign.
This year’s senior class at Tri-County Academy will also be hungry for more as the team will field players who, like the Colonels, own state championship game experience.
Just as IA’s 2019 squad completed its’ season as the 3A state runner-up, the Rebels recorded the same type of finish during that same state championship game weekend. A 10-3 record was sent to the record books after falling in their 4A championship game.
The Colonels did receive some live action this past Friday with their participation in a jamboree hosted by North Delta School in Batesville.
Although thunderstorms delayed the scheduled action and created unexpected opponents, the IA squad eventually opened with a 14-0 victory over Washington School of Greenville.
In their second and final 20-minute quarter of the evening, the Colonels and Kirk Academy of Grenada played to a 6-6 deadlock.
“Our film looked good. As usual, we saw some good things and some things to work on”, said Coach Nester. “The kids did play hard and with good effort.”
“I thought the offensive line played well as did our runningbacks and quarterback,” he continued. “Given we are so young on defense, I thought they also did well.”
