#HSFT16: Stop No. 37 – Choctaw County Chargers

ACKERMAN, Miss. (WCBI) — Choctaw County is building towards a big 2016.

The Chargers ended last season on a high note and are ready to take aim at a challenging 3A south for the upcoming year.

“We made a run at the end and won our last 3 regular season ball games,” head coach Adam Dillinger said. “We have some momentum going in. That’s always great and makes the off-season and summer a lot more enthusiastic. We’re able to build on that, continue to get better and had a good spring because of it.”

A 4-8 overall record may not seem like much, but it was how the Choctaw County Chargers finished 2015 that will make them a threat in 2016.

After starting the year 0-5, head coach Adam Dillinger saw his team win their last 3 in the regular season and hold their own against mighty West Marion in the first round of the playoffs.

Those experiences and wins to end the year helped last year’s youth grow into big time players for this year.

“The young guys got so much experience,” senior Woody Vowell said. “We got better. Once we got into division, we knew what we were doing. Every game we need to improve and we need to get better every game.”

I think everybody got more comfortable playing and got in the groove of playing,” senior David Ramirez said. “For me, not many expectations but just like Woody said we need to improve and try to get into the playoffs.”

Since consolidating into Choctaw County back in 2013, the Chargers haven’t had issues getting into the playoffs; it’s winning and advancing in a rugged 3A South postseason.

The mindset is to continue to hammer down on their tough region and look to make a move towards the top in 2016.

We absolutely want to go far,” Dillinger said. “We don’t want to go to the first round and be done. We want to advance and challenge and be a contender in 3A south. That’s hard to do.

“If you can be a contender in 3A south, you can be a contender in a lot of places. There’s a lot of good teams in our region and we want to continue to compete. We know once we get into region play, those five games will be battles and we need to be ready to go.”