The Pioneers have been taking hits the last two weeks on the gridiron, but Warren County is hopeful to throw some haymakers of its own as a big underdog Friday at home. Warren County will square off with unbeaten Mt. Juliet at 7 p.m., hoping it can change recent momentum after suffering tough losses to White County and Lebanon.
Matt Turner and his coaching staff have talked all week about overcoming adversity and bouncing back in practice. They’ll need to show plenty of resilience to battle with the Golden Bears for the fourth straight year.
“As a coach, you know things are never as bad as they appear or never as good as they appear in any certain situations. You can’t expect to always be at your highest high, nor can you get bogged down during your lowest low,” said Turner. “We didn’t respond like we would’ve liked after winning our opener and I think we had trouble sustaining success even when we did some good things against Lebanon.
“Right now, we just are focusing on getting back to burning the ships and moving forward. Football is going to deal you some tough blows – you just have to keep fighting.”
Losing in Lebanon may not have been the toughest blow Warren County took last week. The Pioneers were also dealt some bad news later that night when starting QB Alex van Vuuren found out he had suffered a broken collarbone while scoring a touchdown in the first half against the Blue Devils.
The senior signal caller will be out multiple weeks due to the injury, leaving Warren County to rework its offense without the veteran at the helm. Sophomore Brady Swallows is the next man up and got a full half to work out the jitters of playing varsity for the first time last week.
“Injuries are going to happen. We’re all wishing Alex a speedy recovery and our hearts go out to him, but Brady has been there every step of the way preparing and learning our offense. He made some throws last week and we’ll give him a chance to show what he can do,” said Turner.
To take down the Golden Bears, who have beaten Warren County in each of the last three seasons after the teams rekindled a rivalry in the 2020 playoffs, the Pioneers will have to find ways to up its scoring. Mt. Juliet comes into the matchup having scored 119 points in three games, including exploding for 56 in a blowout victory over Hunters Lane two weeks ago.
Warren County (1-2) had 34 points in a win over DeKalb County in Week 1, but the Pioneers have twice as many turnovers (6) as scoring drives (3) in the last two weeks.
Avoiding turnovers will be vital against a visiting group that rarely needs help finding the endzone.
“In any game, you can usually look at the turnover battle and the time of possession and have a good idea about which team won. When we’ve been most successful, we’ve been a team that controlled the clock and limited turnovers,” said Turner.
Mt. Juliet will lean on QB Travis Travers to try to attack the Pioneer defense. The senior, who has offers from UAB, Marshall and Eastern Kentucky, threw two touchdown passes each in wins over Cane Ridge and Hunters Lane and ran for another score last week when the Golden Bears held off Gallatin 32-26.
When Travers isn’t airing it out or running wild, the Golden Bears use a 1-2 punch at running back to pulverize opponents. Junior RBs Jon’Mikael Crudup and Harrison Edwards each have multiple TDs and run hard behind a big Golden Bears offensive line.
“It all starts at the line of scrimmage. We have to be strong in the trenches on defense and offense to get going against them,” said Turner.
Tickets for Friday’s home game are available on the GoFan app or can be purchased at the gate.
