TEXARKANA, Ark. - Trinity Christian looks to build upon last year's inaugural season in its second season.
Under head coach Caleb Price, the Warriors' eight-man football team will take to the gridiron in the fall.
"We had a successful season," Price said. "I set my sights up high. The kids improved as the season went along. There were some learning curves along the way. Eight-man football tends to be high scoring and counter plays seems to work really well.
"The best part of the season for me happened in our first game against Arkansas Christian. It was the turnaround from having kids with out there with helmets on playing football to coming together as a team. They became football players. They were catching the ball, making tackles and running the ball. We only had eight players so the kids had to play both ways. We realized that we could play football."
This offensive gameplan started to sink in for the players and the defense got rolling about halfway through the season.
Seniors Matt Jones and Jayce Leeper were two leaders for the Warriors during the 2019 season.
"Matt played center and he led the offensive line," Price said. "He helped the other linemen with their steps and helped teach them some fundamentals.
"About once a game, Jayce would make four consecutive tackles in a series, and we got the ball back. He was the first kid we had to have a breakout. He had never played football in his life."
Quarterback Zack Franklin is returning for his senior year. Franklin was the main catalyst in Trinity Christian's offensive attack and had the perfect football mentality that helped the Warriors improve.
"Zack run for 430 yards in our game against Arkansas Christian," Price said. "I saw about five people crash on him, but then I would see the white jersey pop out on the other side. He'd be gone. Zack brought that mentality to our team that we needed. He made the others realize that they had to be aggressive and not laid back."
Having just eight players in eight-man football was a big challenge for Coach Price. The coaching staff also had to teach the players from scratch due to inexperience. The 2019 Warrior squad was as fresh as they come.
"Not being able to use timeouts strategically was a big game-time challenge," Price said. "Ideally, with just eight guys, I wanted to use my timeouts for breaks. Trying to keep everyone fresh by separating them out was tough. Some of our opponents would run a fly route on us just to burn out some of our guys.
"We opened up football camp with weight lifting, and we've lost just two seniors. We should be getting everyone back and getting some younger players for this fall. I believe we can get some subs and get everyone built for football this time around. We are going to get out there, work our gameplan and fine tune everything."
Trinity Christian will look to get its first ever regular season football victory in the fall.