The Southeast Bulloch Yellow Jackets saw any chance of advancing to the postseason slide by last Friday as they lost to New Hampstead 48-34 and they fell to 3-6 on the season.
It’s been a pretty frustrating season for first-year head coach Jason Anthony, who feels like his team is a lot better than 3-6 record would indicate.
“I think we have been really close and it has been tough to come up short in some of these games,” Anthony said. “Playing a complete game from start to finish is where we have struggled the most. We have had moments of playing really good on defense and special teams and not on offense, or on offense and not defense. Consistency is something we will try and continue to work on for the future because I think we have talent on our team.”
The Yellow Jackets have made the state playoffs in six of the last nine years. Having missed out of the postseason the last two years, Anthony admits he has had to struggle with trying to keep the team together.
“It has been tough to be completely honest,” Anthony said. “You have some kids who are all the way bought in that you don’t worry about, but there are others who start thinking about other sports coming up like basketball and wrestling and you have to remind them what is going on. We’re going to lean on our seniors and try to get everyone on the same page and finish with a win.”
This week, the Yellow Jackets wrap up the season on the road at Long County. Anthony knows it would be easy to just pack things up and go through the motions Friday, but he feels confident that his seniors will battle things out till the end. The Blue Tide will miss the playoffs as well, but Anthony knows they still have some talent and will be looking to finish with a victory as well.
“It’ll be like playing a game in a phone booth,” Anthony said. They love to run the ball and they have the the top rushing back in the region with Markyl Allen who has over 1,000 yards rushing. They’re not going to be really fancy they are physical on both sides of the ball. They’re going to run around and we have to find a way to stop them. On offense we have to keep building off what we did last week and try and maintain a double-digit lead and keep them on their heels.
Southeast Bulloch and Long County are set for a 7:30 start Friday night in Ludowici.
