Story by Rusty Ellis
When the White County Warriors take the field Friday against Station Camp, the occasion will end two separate streaks in Sparta.
The shorter streak is of the two-week variety, as it will have been 14 days since the Warriors’ season-opener against Livingston Academy. It’ll also mark the first time since 2018 that White County will host a region game.
“It should be (a big deal),” said WCHS head coach Mark Fraiser. “This is the biggest game that’s been played in Sparta in seven, eight years…it’s nice to be back in a region and to have something to play for.”
White County didn’t have a week two game after Warren County shut down their program on Aug. 24. The Warriors appeared to have a replacement game set up against The King’s Academy, but that was slashed due to complications on TKA’s end.
Fraiser says that he and administrators made every effort to schedule another game, but nothing came to fruition.
“That was around Tuesday, so we tried really hard to schedule another game,” Fraiser said. “We made 20 phone calls to a lot of different folks to try to make it work…you can only control what you can control, so we worked out hard. We had a couple good days, healed up a little bit from the first week and tried to get back healthy to start preparing for a big region game for us.”
Their week one game against the Wildcats left the Warriors with a plethora of positivity, as junior Malaki Dowell ran for over 200 yards and four touchdowns. Tripp Pinion was another bright spot in his high school debut, as he tossed two touchdowns in the second half.
Pinion’s play gives the Warriors some insurance at the quarterback position, as he, Dowell and sophomore Owen Adams now give White County a deep stable of signal-callers that can all get the job done.
“It’s a great feeling,” Fraiser said. “Owen Adams is one of, if not the best defensive players on our team, but if you lose him and you’re down to one (quarterback), that’s a scary thought…Owen’s fun to watch play and he’s just an exciting kid. With Tripp there, allowing us to play Owen on defense and Malaki plays defense and he’s already taking a pounding carrying the ball, it gives you another option that frees you up to do what you need to do.”
The Warriors return to region play features a home showdown with Station Camp, a team currently sitting at 2-0 after their 33-13 win over Hillsboro. The first thing Fraiser says that jumps out to him on film is Station Camp’s physicality.
Not one to shy away from physical play, Fraiser knows the key to coming away with a win on Friday is matching the Bison’s style.
“They play really hard,” Fraiser said. “They’ve been really physical up front on both sides in their two wins…they had a rough year last year in 6A, but they moved down to 5A and they’ve got a lot of kids back. They’re a good team, you don’t beat Hillsboro by 20 if you’re not good, so we’re going to have to be physical and hold on to the football and not make mistakes in order to be competitive.”
The two teams will square off in Sparta on Friday at 7 P.M.