Wewahitchka prepares for game three week with Rutherford

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) -The game set for Wewahitchka Friday is one involving two area high school teams who sat out a rare bye week in the second week of the season. The Rutherford Rams, who lost to Mosley in their opener in week one, will travel east to Wewa Friday, the Gators with a loss to Liberty in their opener, then taking a bye.

Let’s focus on the Gators here. Not only did they go through a bye week last week, they did so with three days off from school. Because of COVID issues for all Gulf County schools last week, the Superintendent ordered schools closed last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. So an unexpected burp in the schedule for coach Johns and his guys!

“As a coach I hate when we’re practicing and we’re not in school.” Gators head coach Bobby Johns told me Tuesday. “You debate whether or practice in the morning or the afternoon. I have a couple of my coaches that don’t teach so I can’t get them until the afternoons. So we always go in the afternoons. The kids lay around all day and do nothing and try to come in and practice. So it was obviously a challenge. I mean we’re glad to be back in school today. We’ve had some good days of practice but we need to get back on the right track against Rutherford. "

So coach Johns and his team spending last week just practicing, no game scheduled for this past Friday. The coach telling me it’s unusual to play one game then take a week off, but it wasn’t the worst thing in the world for his Gators!

“It took us a couple of days to overcome losing that ballgame, losing it the way we did.” says coach Johns. “We felt really good about the game going in. Did not play very good in the first half. Made some mistakes and coach Jordan had those guys at Liberty ready to play. And they took advantage of our mistakes and we were not able to did out of the hole. So it took us a couple of days to get over that. So it probably was a good thing that we had a week off and didn’t have to get ready for somebody else. I’ve never had an open week this early in the year with nine straight.”

Nine straight games now with no more open weeks, barring cancellations. As for the Rams, having some extra time last week probably didn’t hurt either, after the tough half of play resulted in the loss to Mosley in week one. Friday’s game at Wewa set for 7 and it’s one of several we’ll feature on Friday Night Overtime.

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