South Walton and Walton look ahead to Friday showdown

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) -This week’s American Charlie Grill and Tavern High School Football Game of the Week has us focused on Walton County. Two teams over there now getting set to go head to head in an undefeated showdown, South Walton and Walton. The Seahawks are 3-0, with wins over Baker, Fort Walton Beach and Arnold. The latter a hard fought 24-12 win, so South Walton with plenty of momentum as they get set to head north. As for the Braves, they are 4-0 with victories over Marianna, Florida A&M, Rutherford and Maclay. 21 points the most narrow margin of victory for the Braves. So they too have plenty of momentum. With the teams a combined 7-0 heading into this one, well there’s plenty of reason for the folks on the south and north sides of the county to be excited about Friday night’s contest.

,“Friday is a big game.” South Walton head coach Phil Tisa told me. “I think it’s also a great barometer of where we’re at. Walton had a great season last year and I think this team is just as good if not better. On both sides of the ball. So it should be a packed house and an exciting night.”

“We’ve had this one you know, the game’s kind of like I guess how you look at the big conferences in college.” says Walton head coach Keith White. “They kind of have a few play in games, and then they get set for the big conference. South Walton kind of starts a stretch for us that’s going to be tough. Last year we played them week two, and we tried to move it on down further in the season this year. So we’ve got them down here now here and week five. So hopefully we’ve got some kinks worked out. But it will be exciting there will be a lot of people come out.”

“You know both of us we have good records,” adds coach Tisa “but it’s still yet to be determined what you know what either one of us have, what our opponents have been up to this point? So I think we’re both still trying to figure out exactly how good we are? So I think both of us really need this test at this point to see what type of football team we truly are.”

“Yeah our crowd is really excited.” says coach White “We’ve got 18 seniors and all of their parents are excited, the players are excited. You know they beat us last year and that kind of sticks in your craw a little bit, you know when somebody beats you you can’t wait to play that team again. Them and Florida high was the two teams we lost to last year so our kids are really excited. We won’t have no trouble getting them ready at practice this week. The community is buzzing and they’ve been waiting for a good football game and they’ll see one Friday night.”

That game at Yates Memorial Friday set for 7 and is one of many we’ll feature on Friday Night Overtime.

The Game of the Week is sponsored by American Charlie Grill and Tavern, where we love food and we love our country.

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