When West Marion takes the field Friday night in Biloxi, the Trojans will have a lot to play for against St. Patrick, who has proven to be the worst team in Region 8-3A.
The Trojans (5-4, 3-1) have already clinched a playoff berth but need to beat St. Patrick (1-8, 0-4) to secure being at home for the first round. While the Fighting Irish have struggled mightily this season, West Marion head coach Brandon Thornhill said the game still has to be decided between the lines.
“St. Patrick may be 1-8, but we still have to go out and play,” he said. “We’re going to get better at some things, and we’ll have a few new faces that we haven’t seen this year, we’ll have a couple guys back and we may sit a couple guys. You never know. We have some other guys dinged up.”
Thornhill said the Fighting Irish play harder and are more organized than they have in the past, but they still lack a little bit of speed.
A crazy stat about St. Patrick is it has yet to score a single point in Region 8-3A play. The Fighting Irish have lost to St. Stanislaus 42-0, Perry Central 51-0, Jeff Davis County 40-0 and Seminary 35-0. But Thornhill said the Trojans can’t go into the game thinking they already won.
“We still have to go play, run and put up some points,” he said.
West Marion will get reigning Defensive Player of the Year Octavious Harvey back against St. Patrick after he missed the previous two games.
Kickoff is at 7 p.m.
