The Portal Panthers are rolling right along. After a season opening loss to Wheeler County, the Panthers have reeled off four-straight wins, including a 48-19 win over Atkins County last Friday.

And head coach Jason McEachin isn’t surprised by the 4-1 start and believes the Panthers have continued to improve in all areas.

“I really like how we're kind of steadily improving,” McEachin said. “We're kind of finding the little areas each week that we can really focus on and dive into and improve on. Whether it’s execution in different spots on offense or ball security or creating turnovers or limiting big plays. Overall, we're still seeing progress and I’m proud of how well we're able to run the ball and how many turnovers we're creating right now on the defensive side.”

One of the keys to the Portal success has been their ability to create turnovers. The Panthers already have 15 in only five games and McEachin said that was an emphasis going into the season.

“I got together with our defense coordinator David Seigler in the offseason and looked for areas of improvement,” McEachin said. “One of them was that we have not created many turnovers. We came up with a plan to emphasize creating turnovers in practice instead of just hoping and waiting for it to happen on Friday nights.

“We created a system where we tally turnovers in practice to reward players each week for whoever created or recovered the most in practice. It is in every drill now on the defensive side of the ball and there is a turnover count going.”

This week, it’s a first ever matchup for Portal as they host Blackville Hilda. With only five teams in their region, McEachin had trouble finding a playing partner for week six and was happy to have found one who should be competitive. The Fighting Hawks come in with a perfect 5-0 record and have outscored their opposition by a whopping 214-20.

“They've been impressive as not only are they finding ways to win, they've won all their games pretty easily,” McEachin said. "Most of what they do on offense goes through their running back Jayden Peeples. He has almost 1,000 yards rushing already through five games.

“He is the feature back and has good balance and good vision. We've seen a couple backs that maybe are a little bit faster, but as far as an overall back that we faced this year, he's the best.”

Portal and Blackville Hilda are set for a 7:30 start Friday night at the Portal Athletic Complex.