#HSFT16: Stop No. 56 – New Hope Trojans
| CLASS 5A | REGION 1 |
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| HEAD COACH: Kris Pickle |
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| Aug 19 | Louisville | Home |
| Aug 26 | Aberdeen | Away |
| Sept 2 | Columbus | Home |
| Sept 9 | OPEN | |
| Sept 16 | Caledonia | Away |
| Sept 23 | Clarksdale* | Home |
| Sept 30 | Center Hill* | Away |
| Oct 7 | Lake Cormorant* | Home |
| Oct 14 | Oxford* | Away |
| Oct 21 | Lewisburg* | Home |
| Oct 28 | West Point* | Away |
| Nov 4 | Saltillo* | Home |
| *District games | ||
COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) — After a history making season in 2014, New Hope went through growing pains as a team in 2015.
The Trojans finished the year 3-8 but five of those losses were a one possession game going into the 4th quarter.
Head coach Kris Pickle wants his team to learn how to finish in the new season and there’s one area from last year that will help make that happen.
Experience. We returned 7 guys that got playing time last year,” Pickle said. “This year, we have everyone returning on defense and offense. Leadership out there is going a long way. When you have guys out there that haven’t been there or battle tested, it says a lot for guys to come in and have an idea of what to expect in practice.”
New Hope ended last season on a solid run of form, winning 2 of their last 3 to end the year.
Taking the momentum from 2015 into the new season is important, but most of all it’s believing in the we not me mentality.
We have more leadership and more experience than last year,” senior Andre Erby said. “Everybody tried to be themselves last year. We want to change that. We’re more experienced than other teams. We have more coming back.”
“At practice, I can tell people are working harder,” senior Parker Lane said. “That’s different. We were selfish last year but we are getting rid of that.”
And the team focus has New Hope doing something new this year: believing.
The Trojans believe that this season will be much like their 2014 campaign where they rise to the occasion and make a statement to the rest of 5A.
“Coaches have been telling us to believe and buy into the system,” Lane said. “If everyone buys in hard enough, everyone thinks we’ll win. If we think we’ll win, we are going to win.”
“Everybody wants to win a State Championship. Obviously everybody does. We want to win a state championship too,” coach Pickle said. “We want to compete for district championships.
“Our division is top heavy with West Point, Oxford and Lake Cormorant. We feel we’re right there with them. We talk about the same thing every year. West Point is going to be a favorite and if we win our division, we’ll be right where we need to be.”
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