Straughn welcomes Cottage Hill Christian Academy tomorrow night in region action, and Tigers head football coach Trent Taylor said this week’s game will give many players an opportunity to get in some repetitions.

The Tigers are coming off a 36-14 victory over Southside-Selma, whereas the Warriors lost to W.S. Neal 58-0. This latest victory for SHS and W.S. Neal came on the cusp of 19 of its players being suspended by the Alabama High School Athletic Association. This is the last game of a two-game suspension players will have to sit out.

Cottage Hill sits at 0-2 on the season because it didn’t have a week one of the regular season.

Taylor said by looking at film, the Warriors improved against Southside-Selma, despite the loss.

“They played extremely well,” he said. “Southside did a lot of good things. They got things going early in the game. But, when they finally realized what they can do, it was too little too late.”

The penalties and turn overs that CHCA performed in week one against Southside-Selma were “week one” mistakes, Taylor said.

“With W.S. Neal, after all that went down, they had something to prove,” he said. “They played a little bit mad. They (the Warriors) got the blunt of it.

“They’re starting to find what their niche’ is offensively,” he said. “They’re going to be prepared (for us).”

Cottage Hill will bring an 3-4 defensive look to Tigers Stadium tomorrow night.

It’s a look Taylor said the team is all to well familiar with because most teams either use an even or odd fronts these days.

“Andalusia’s was a 3-4, and Neal’s was a 3-3,” Taylor said. “Last week, Southside-Selma was an even front. The odd front is becoming more and more vogue. You’re seeing either a stack or 3-4 in more and more teams.”

Taylor added that future region opponents T.R. Miller and Bayside Academy use 3-3 stacks.

Straughn (2-1, 2-0 in Class 3A, Region 1) will face Opp and Excel in region action other than T.R. Miller and the Admirals in the second half of the season.

Taylor said there’s still a lot of things to be determined, even if the Tigers get a win this week.

“I still look back at the win over W.S. Neal and it was a significant win for us in some ramification or the other,” he said. “W.S. Neal is a very athletic football team. They’re going to get guys back (after the suspensions run out) and they’ll be somebody to be reckoned with. Opp has had the misfortune of playing (T.R. Miller and Bayside Academy, the top two teams in the region) first. The half time scores indicate both of ball games came down to the wire at the end.”