The Saints had a long march to Louisville, MS seeking an upset over the AAAA Winston Patriots. The result was a long bus ride back to Bay Springs with a 32-8 loss.
The Saints will go back to the drawing board and film room for head coach Terry Underwood and his staff. Up next is a much-improved Benton Academy, but fortunately, Benton is a similar size school with similar depth.
“We finally are going to play a team in our class. Benton has a pretty good senior group and we have been fortunate enough to beat them the last few years. They are going to be a tough test for us, but we need to try to get on the winning side. We gotta get better at a lot of little things,” Underwood said of the upcoming home game.
Sylva-Bay has struggled against bigger schools lately. They have not put up a competitive score this season, and Benton will be no pushover. In other words, if these young Saints do not find the fire in their bellies soon, the losing train may become an unstoppable force.
Underwood has seen a lot of football throughout his long coaching career, and he shouldered the burden of this young team saying, “We are 0-4. We are in the same position as last year, and we were able to go on and win our district. Let me say this: First, as a head coach, I take full responsibility for the performance of our players. We are not playing as well as we should. I have not done as good a job as a coach as I should have. But we have not given up.”
The Saints were able to muster a four-yard quarterback scamper by Paxton Brewer in the fourth quarter for six points. Brewer then hit Henderson for a two-point conversion. That was the only points of the game by Sylva-Bay, but not the only bright spot. Freshman Jacob Bowen punted the ball like a champion. He flipped the field on just about every punt and made Winston work for each of their scoring drives.
Underwood knows that four straight losses can brew some bad noise in the fans and players, but he does not waiver in his approach. “We can’t quit. The only thing that is worse than losing and that is quitting. We don’t have quitters on this team. We are dealing through some sickness and injuries, but we have to manage through that,” he said.
The season is young, and the beauty of football is that it pays back to those that never give up. Underwood proclaimed that in describing his approach for the rest of 2020, “We still have a lot of season left and a lot to play for. That will be my attitude and the attitude of the kids going forward.”
