By Buddy Roberts
News-Aegis
Pell City —
The Pell City Panthers can expect a confident opponent in Friday’s season opener against Shelby County, according to head coach Jay Brown, although a jamboree win last week has bolstered his team’s confidence in anticipation of the game.
“It’s (been) a long week working on Friday night, but we’re excited,” Brown said. “It’s going to be a challenge for us opening on the road, though, because Shelby is a heck of a team.”
Friday will be the third consecutive year in which the two teams have opened their seasons together, and Brown doesn’t expect the Wildcats’ game to be much different than it’s been in the past.
“They’ve won 20 games the last two seasons, and they have the capability of rebuilding and being good again this year. They’ll have a lot of speed, a strong running attack, and a lot of play-action passes.”
The Panthers hope to duplicate the tight offense and strong defense they demonstrated against Grissom in their 14-3 pre-season win last Friday.
“The guys did a great job,” Brown said. “Our defense kept them out of the end zone, and everybody played really well and extremely hard. It showed that we were in good condition.”
