#HSFT20 Stop #35 — Starkville Academy Volunteers

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STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) — The Starkville Academy Volunteers have unfinished business to take care of in the 2020 season.

The Volunteers made it to the 2019 5A state title game, however, came up short against arch-rival Heritage Academy, 55-10.

Now, Starkville Academy is ready to return and bring a gold ball back home with them this time.

“To see a young group like last year with such seasoned seniors who had been around so long and had won a championship in 2017, you know, those seniors are going to leave a huge legacy,” head coach Chase Nicholson said. “They set the bar high. Which is what every senior group should do because we weren’t supposed to win a game. We went from not winning a game to playing for a state championship. That’s what the seniors going out had to do and that’s what the seniors coming in are going to have to do. They have to set the bar higher and higher and higher. The only way you’re going to do that is through hard work and continuing to get better every single day.”

Now that a bunch of Nicholson’s team has seen a state championship game, he says it makes it that much easier to find a way to return.

“It’s exciting for the young guys to get the experience. It’s exciting for our team to get to experience that because you know what it tastes like. Every time you can have that taste, you want to taste it again,” Nicholson said.

“Some of the seniors in their freshman year made it to the state championship and they won and us last year we lost so we know which one we want to do,” senior ATH Brody Pierce said.

Although the Volunteers are eager for the taste of gold in their mouths, Nicholson said his team can’t focus on a state championship appearance.

“It’s just going to be week-to-week. We have to beat Lamar before we go into week two. We can’t worry about who we’re going to play. We start doing that then we’re going to miss the moment. That’s how teams don’t get back. When they focus on the end results and not how to get there. We know the path but we have no idea what path we’re going to land on. We just know when we get on it, what that looks like to get to a championship. We have to find that path and it starts with the first step with Lamar.”

“Dont look back, always look forward and keep working,” Pierce said is the team’s current mentality.

Nicholson always stresses to his team a next-man-up mentality saying the team’s depth keeps the Volunteers competitive year after year.

“We don’t ever rebuild. We’re always reloading. That’s just our mentality. We want to be competitive immediately. We’re not looking to take years off.”

‘We’re not the team from last year,” senior RB CJ Jackson said. “We have more talent and new players that come in and work every day.”

Starkville Academy begins the road back to a state championship against Lamar on August 21st.