Pearl River football preps for season opener against Holmes

POPLARVILLE, Miss. (WLOX) - Seth Smith and the Pearl River Wildcats getting ready to kick off their season.

They’ll open at home with Holmes Thursday.

Coach Smith says this years team is a little older with a number of sophomores on the squad, 31 sophomores and 10 redshirt freshman to be exact.

He says they’re experienced at just about every position and wants the work they’ve put in with the off the field culture to translate to on the field results.

“These guys have been here now, they understand the culture, they understand what we want. So it’s exciting to go into tomorrow night,” said Smith.” You feel like you have a tool box full of weapons and guys that know how to play hard and know what our vision of playing hard is. If we’re going to win we have to play harder than people. Now I feel like we have a group that’s old enough and understand what our version of effort looks like.”

The sophomores on the team are ready to work and have bought into the culture they’ve built.

”We’re very prepared we’ve been working since June 6th and even before that, we’ve been working and it’s time for our blood and sweat to pay off,” said sophomore center and Oak Grove alum Taurese Sibley.

”Last year we didn’t have a culture set just yet but now that we’ve returned a lot of guys last year and we instilled that in the spring, waking up at 5:30 in the morning to go to six o’clock workouts,” said sophomore offensive lineman and St. Martin alum Terrick Bryant. “I believe we’ve been working harder than anybody.”

“We have an older team so we need to make sure we leave these coaches off right because they do right by us,” said sophomore offensive lineman and Harrison Central alum Zizzy Luckey. “We do extra things. If we see somebody messing up we try and help. It’s something that I’ve learned and I learned last year, we just have to let them know.”

The Wildcats kick off the season Thursday at home against Holmes.

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