“It’s really going to test us and it’s going to show like, are we really that good of a team?,” said Whitehall senior Jackson Cook.
After an 8-3 record last season, Whitehall football starts 2022 against the reigning Division Four state runner up, Unity Christian.
“The first thing I’m going to think about with that game is that it should be like a playoff atmosphere. And that type of game really should get some notoriety that I think it deserves. But my expectation from Unity is to be an elite football team. They’ve done that know for the better part of five to ten years, and the expectation of that should be no less from us, and we know that they are excellent,” said Head Coach Tony Sigmon.
“I think this is a huge test and it’s kinda something that shows. It gives us an opportunity to prove that we’re a good team and that we should be up there too in Division Four,” said senior left guard Shane Cook.
The Vikings program has gotten increasingly better in the last few years, but they’ve lost in back-to-back district championship games. They hope their experience will help push them past week 11.
“I think the success that we had last year caused a lot of kids on the team to buy over the summer and even last spring, to life a lot, and really we’ve just been working hard for a long time and the success from last year really helped with that,” said Shane.
“Being 1-0 in any season is big just because it’s kind of validation from all the work you’ve done in the last 21 days and from there previously with the summer. So I think that it’s big every year but this year it really does say a lot about the character of our group and our abilities and our ceiling if we’re able to get that first win this year,” said Sigmon.
Whitehall has five three-year varsity players. Three on the offensive line. Not to mention their junior quarterback, Kyle Stratton, will start under center for the second straight year.
“The guys that we’ve got coming up that are juniors now, they’re studs. We lost Alec (Pruitt), he was a great running back, but we’ve got me, Trent and Darnell. The line also, we’ve got returners. I mean our offense is going to be good, but our defense especially. I mean we lost a few studs, but we’ve got studs too, so we’ve got so many returners. I’m so excited,” said Jackson Cook.
“At this point I think what we’re kind of known for in our area is that we have some pretty dynamic skill kids, and that maybe just kinda not being the new kid on the block anymore, and just showing that we do have some maturity, and that we do have some consistency over the last ten years."
The Vikings will travel to take on Unity on Thursday at 7pm.
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