The Locker Room October 21, 2009

The Pulaski County Cougars travel back to Roanoke this week to try again to get a win at Dwight Bogle Field.  The Cougars are facing the Hidden Valley Titans, and most people are considering them the underdogs after four straight losses.

Hello again Cougar fans, and welcome back to another week here at cougarfootball.net.  What can you say?  For the third time in the last four games the Cougars took a lead into the fourth quarter, but couldn't finish the opponent off.  Last Friday night the Cougars allowed 21 points to be scored in the fourth quarter by the Cave Spring Knights, as they fell by a final score of 42-34 on a cold and rainy night.  The game was going the Cougars way until turnovers and mental mistakes cost Pulaski the contest.   The Cougars will now have to pull together and do what they can to find something to build on in these last three games of the regular season.

Surprisingly, the Cougars playoff hopes are far from over after this loss.   Pulaski is currently tied for 6th place in the power points with Bassett at a 17.9 rating.  The current points leaders are Salem (29.1), Christiansburg (23.3), Hidden Valley (22.9), Carroll County (21.7), and Magna Vista (18.6).   If Pulaski can find a way to win at least one of their last three games, they should have enough points to make the playoffs as the 6th place team.  Again, I don't necessarily agree with the system that would allow a 3-7 team into the playoffs, but sometimes you just have to take the cards your dealt.  Right now the Cougars just need to work on playing as a team and cutting down on the errors to be successful.

The task this week will not get any easier.  The Hidden Valley Titans come into the contest with a very respectable 5-2 record, and are 2-0 in the River Ridge District.   After an out of district schedule that included wins over Patrick Henry (44-12), William Byrd (49-14), and Lord Botetourt (25-3), the Titans suffered their two losses at the hands of Brookville (34-7) and Northside (20-18).  The Titans opened up district play with a 24-6 win over Blacksburg, followed by a 28-21 win over Christiansburg last week.  The Titans have one of the better running backs in the state in David Williams, who has rushed for over 1500 yards already this season.   Stopping him will be one of the keys for the Cougars to earn a win.

The Cougars lead the series with Hidden Valley 4 wins to 2, and have won the last two contests.  Until last season, when the Cougars won a hard fought 28-16 victory at Kenneth J. Dobson Stadium, the home team had never won a game in this series.  The Cougars are coming into the game with nothing to lose, and everything to gain, while the Titans are fighting for at least a share of the River Ridge District, which would be a first for the school which opened its doors in 2003 after Cave Spring High School was split.

As is often times the case during down years, there are certain fans and folks from other schools and areas that are eating up the Cougars lack of success this season.  Unfortunately, there are also some of our very own that are questioning certain aspects of the program and what they feel should and shouldn't be done for the team to be successful.  It's a shame that folks are like that, because the only thing it does is bring down what has been, over the long haul, one of the most successful programs in the state.   Most people look at Pulaski's current record and think something must be wrong with Pulaski.

While the Cougars are certainly not doing as well as they could be, there are also things to consider.  First of all, the other teams that the Cougars are playing are just a little better this season than they usually are.  If you take a close look at the teams that the Cougars have played so far this season, most of them are loaded with seniors on the offensive and defensive line, which is where most games are won or lost.  The line just happens to be one of the areas where the Cougars don't have very many upper classmen this season, and the results should be predictable.  The very fact that Pulaski has been in most games until late in the games should be proof that the coaches have put together a solid game plan to give the team a chance to win.

Add in to that the fact that Pulaski has certainly played one of.... if not THE.... most difficult out of district schedules in the history of the program.  While Radford is a single A team, the mere fact that it is a rivalry game with a school so close makes that game worth playing.   Northside is a senior dominated team, as is William Fleming, Cave Spring, and Amherst.  The Christiansburg line is made up of mostly seniors as well, along with several key seniors in skill position spots.  Patrick Henry is dealing with an excess of youth on their team this season, along with learning a new system from a new coach.  Their 2-6 record is tough to take for them just like our 2-5 record is tough to take for us, but there is good news on the horizon.   Those younger players are going to get older, and next season the tide will turn and some of those teams loaded with seniors will go back to being loaded with sophomores and juniors.

Until then, the only thing we can do is go out and support the kids on the team as much as we can, and hope that they can pull things together here at the end of the season.  It would be wrong of us as fans to expect anything less than the best from the team, but it would be just as wrong for us to leave them hanging out to dry when they are having problems achieving it.  These are still our kids, and they are still our Cougars.  Let's get out there and get behind them as they head into the last three games of the regular season, and maybe we can pump them up enough to help shock a few folks along the way.

Game time is set for 7:30, let's go out there this week and make some noise for our kids as they fight their way through a tough spot.

GO COUGARS!!!  BEAT THE TITANS!!!