Panthers finish with win

It was a new season of football for the Alberton Panthers and they finished it with a winning game against St. Regis last Friday. The Panthers played their final six-man football for the season against the Tigers and won 63-22.

“I thought we went up well against them,” said Coach Jake Giffin. “I know they were down a few kids and didn’t have some of the kids they did when we first played them.”

Giffin said that it was like his kids were on “cruise control” throughout the game.

“They went out and played their game and executed the plays,” Giffin said.

Giffin said that one of the things that they talked about all week besides winning the game was to allow the younger kids on the team to get some playing time.

“Going into that game, our goal was to win, but we also talked throughout the week about letting the younger kids play as much as possible,” Giffin said.

Giffin said that since the school switched to six-man, they haven’t set up a junior-varsity team. He said that it can be hard sometimes to get the younger kids out on the field during a game.

“It’s hard to get those kids in when it’s down to the wire and back and forth,” Giffin said. “It’s nice to get them into those games though so they can run defense and execute plays outside of practice. They get to see it in a game situation.”

The Panthers are officially done for the season. To move onto the playoffs, they had to beat North Star, which was a task they didn’t accomplish.

“I think I was a bit disappointed in the season. I thought it could end better, but it was the first year going to six-man and the kids did a great job picking up on the game,” Giffin said. “I think there are little things we still need to figure out that the other teams have down. But it was a good transition.”

The Panthers finished the season 4-4 overall. Giffin said that they still need to figure out how to put a full game together.

“We have the kids and the talent,” Giffin said. “Hopefully, we can make it to the playoffs next year and advance beyond that.”

Giffin said that some of the challenges the team faced during the season was just being mentally ready at the beginning of the football game.

“One of our biggest challenge was just how we go into a football game,” Giffin said, “being ready and mentally focused and realizing that they do have a good chance of competing and beating other teams. We had trouble convincing ourselves before a game that we are just as good as the team we were facing.”