The Lincoln Preparatory School football team will be trying to accomplish something on Friday that they haven’t done since November of 2019 — pull off a pair of consecutive victories.
Lincoln Prep will take that challenge as they play at Ringgold at 7 p.m. Friday.
The last time the Panthers won two straight came when they defeated Magnolia School of Excellence 43-6 before topping Ringgold 28-20 to close out regular season play in 2019.
“We’re trying to build a culture — a football culture and a winning culture,” said Panthers head coach Glen Hall about this week’s game. “We want our players to know they can win — to expect to win. It was good to get that opening game win under our belt. But that’s all it was — one game. It’s something to build on, but we want to keep on building. We want to keep on getting better and better and to get used to winning.”
The Indians opened the season last week with a 32-12 home loss to Northwood Lena, but Hall said his Panthers won’t be taking Ringgold lightly.
“Ringgold is going to be really tough this year,” Hall said. “They’ve got some speed and size. I don’t know where they came from, but we were at a track meet last spring and those guys were flying. It’s going to be a challenge.”
The Indians went winless in the two games they played during last year’s COVID-shortened season. The last time Ringgold High School defeated a Grambling-based school came when the Indians defeated Grambling Lab 31-14 in October of 2010.
Lincoln Prep will be looking to build on a 44-6 season opening win at Beekman Charter in Bastrop, a game in which the Panthers produced more than 600 yards of offense, including more than 400 passing yards from quarterback Tarell Simons, who added another 120 yards on the ground.
Wideout Dmitri Payne hauled in more than 300 receiving yards and four scoring catches in that win while running Chauncy Harper added another 120 yards rushing.
“We’re opened strong,” Hall said. “Now we just have to get better this week. That’s how a football team builds a winning season — getting better every week. We’re just going to take things one game at a time, and right now our focus is on Ringgold.”
No radio broadcast is available for the game.
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