Rising 8th-Graders Trying to Keep Winning Streak Alive
What started two seasons ago with the sixth-grade Valdosta Middle School School football team, the Alley Cats, going undefeated and winning the conference championship for the 2020 season, continued this past season with the seventh-grade Wildcats keeping the undefeated streak alive. They too won their conference championship. Now, the challenge of keeping Valdosta Middle School undefeated will be with the Tom Cats, the rising eighth-graders.
The coaches that have overseen this streak of 13 straight wins over the last two seasons are longtime Wildcat supporter Dirk Harrell and Jamaal Hunter, who was a three-year starting DE for the Wildcats from 2005-07. Harrell is the coach of the sixth-grade Alley Cats, a position he has held since he started the team in 2003, while Hunter is in his third season of coaching the seventh-grade team.
It’s never easy for any team to run the table and win every game, especially when you’re talking about the caliber of opponents that the teams have to face week-in and week-out. That includes the “Big Five Conference” of area middle school teams from Tift County, Colquitt County, Lowndes, and Coffee. Valdosta Middle makes number five.
The Alley Cats finished 6-0 in 2020, while last season that same group, now as seventh-graders, finished 7-0. The two coaches talked about the most memorable games in each undefeated season.
“For us, it was the last game of the season at Tift County,” said Harrell. “We were staring at an undefeated season, needing just one more game to finish a perfect season, but we knew this was going to be tough. Tift County had a really solid team, and Tift is a big rival for Valdosta at any level.”
An injury during the game against Tift made Harrell’s job even more difficult.
“We were leading 14-0 when we had a young man go down with a broken leg, and it was a really bad injury,” said Harrell. “He had to be taken to the hospital, and as the medical folks were putting the young man into the ambulance, our entire team huddled around the player, who was alert and talking, and telling him everything was going to be OK.”
The serious nature of the injury brought up several complications.
“First of all, I was worried about our player,” said Harrell. “I knew he was hurting. But, I was also worried about our team. It’s never easy to see a teammate go down, plus there was about a 30-45 minute break in the game, and I was just worried about the mindset of our players. I mean, you’re talking about 12-year-old kids. But, we restarted the game, and our kids didn’t miss a beat. We scored every time we touched the ball and wound up winning the game 32-14 and the conference championship.”
Rolling right into the next season as seventh-graders, Hunter took over the team, and like Harrell from the season before, he too had a lot of great memories from their undefeated season.
“There were two games I remember as the highlights of the season,” said Hunter. “The most memorable game was against Coffee Middle in the third game of the season. We committed four turnovers in that game, and it was a close game. We went to overtime and won 24-16. It turned out to be the closest game of the year for us.”
The seventh-grade coach also pointed to what he called the most anticipated game of last season.
“We played Colquitt, and both teams were 3-0,” said Hunter. “Fans for both teams were on social media hyping the game.”
But, the seventh-grade Wildcats would flex their muscle and win going away 38-0 to move to 4-0. The Wildcats would go on to defeat North Lowndes Middle in the playoffs 26-8, and then in the championship game, they would face Coffee once again in a rematch.
This time, however, the game was not as close as the regular season matchup. Valdosta won easily 48-0 and in the process would be crowned conference champs. That was 13 in a row.
Now, entering this season as eighth-graders, all eyes will be on the same group of kids to see if they can run the table one more time. One big plus for the team is that they will have a familiar face as their head coach since Hunter will move up with the team and coach the eighth-graders this season.
Varsity football head coach Shelton Felton has moved former eighth-grade coach Clay Brandiger to director of football operations for the middle school program. Therefore, Hunter and his staff will oversee the eighth-grade team this season heading into spring practice.
Harrell and Hunter are not alone in their coaching responsibilities. Assisting head coach Dirk Harrell with the sixth-grade Alley Cats are:
- Jerome Everett – Defensive Coordinator/LB coach
- Fleming Brooks – RB coach
- Trey Wetherington – Special Teams
- Brent Lehman – OL
- Justin Crenshaw – Receivers
- David Barry – DB coach
Assisting Head Coach Jamaal Hunter with the seventh-grade Wildcats are:
- Kevin Prather – Offensive Coordinator
- Kendrick Berry – Defensive Coordinator
- Gary Moore – Defensive Assistant
- Myrese Cobb – Offensive Coordinator
Can the eighth-grade Tom Cats keep the streak going? We’ll be sure to give you an update.
