#HSFT18: Stop No. 5 – Noxapater Tigers

NOXAPATER, Miss. (WCBI) — Noxapater looks to make the post season for a fourth straight season.

Fifteen starters return for the Noxapater Tigers football team in 2018.

“We brought a lot of guys back,” said head coach Casey Orr. “We did lose some skill guys off last year’s team, but we are basically bringing back all of our linemen on both sides of the ball. I think that will be a strong suit for us this year, and our guys have worked hard.”

The Tigers finished 8-4 last season and made the playoffs. The team says they are excited to get the season back underway.

“I think we are going to have a really good season,” said junior quarterback Quinton Jordan. “As far as you know being competitive and everything as long as we keep our head together and compete as a team, and we’ll do good.”

“We got a lot of guys working hard,” adds junior teammate Ryan Whitfield. “We’ve got to put some young guys in, and so we will be straight. We just got to keep pushing and working hard this summer.”

Noxapater has a rich tradition of making the playoffs.

Last season, the Tigers were eliminated in the 1st round by stringer, but coach Orr says this isn’t where he wants his team to be.

“The community here loves their football, and being put out of the first round of the playoffs is not what we expect,” Coach Orr said. “That’s not the type of team we want to be, and finishing third in our district is totally unacceptable to us. Our guys have worked hard to correct that and make sure that this upcoming year that we’re able to achieve everything that we should.”

Noxapater had three new divisional opponents enter their division last season, and the team will have to be prepared for another great test from those guys if they want to be successful.

“They are very competitive football teams,” Jordan said. “We are going to have to really play if we want to be competitive in our division ourselves, but I think we should be more worried about Noxapater, and make sure Noxapater is ready to play.”

“This division is a good division top to bottom,” Orr adds. “There is no rarely a week off for anything like that, and you know Hamilton and Vardaman I thought coming into our district were two good very solid opponents. I thought that really strengthen our division as a whole.”

Noxapater will open their season on the road August 17th at Saint Andrews.