2016 Tucker County High School Football Team
By Dave Helmick
TuckerCountySports.Com
The High School Football season will get underway this Friday August 26th as Tucker County Football will host Pocahontas County at 7:30pm. This year the Mt. Lions return 17 lettermen from last year’s 4-6 team. Gone are 8 seniors from last year’s team that leave some shoes to fill for this. The season ended last year with a big win against a Notre Dame team that needed the win to make the playoffs. The Mt. Lions won that game to keep the Irish out of the post season and built some momentum back in November for this season.
Head Coach AJ Rapp has been happy with the effort in the off season from this group as well saying, “Since we started back up in December we have had 25-30 kid’s show up for conditioning and lifting.” Rapp is excited about he has returning, “We have a good core group back, any coach will tell you they are glad to have 5 senior offensive linemen.” There is a total of 12 seniors on this year’s team. Coach Rapp has a total of 32 kids on the team.
This year the Quarterback position will be handed over to Junior Luke Poling. Rapp knows that his quarterback will have some on the job learning saying, “Luke will have to adjust to the speed of the game as he found out in the first scrimmage, and the progression from JV to varsity is a different speed.” The Mt. Lions return some players with experience in Eddie Kachmarek, Logan Pitzer, Brody Strawderman, Jonathan Paugh, Will Callaway, Joey Howell, Dillon Swartz, Jameson Hardy, Logan Pennington and Brett Reall to name a few.
The Mt. Lions will travel to Tygarts Valley in week 2 and then travel to Northern Garrett on week 3 September 9th. Tucker County will return home for 4 straight game against Moorefield on September 16th, Philip-Barbour September 23rd, Southern Garrett on September 30th and then East Hardy on October 7th. The Mt. Lions will be idle for week 8 on Oct 14th week. Tucker County will then finish out the regular season with 3 road games as they travel to Pendleton County on October 21st, at Petersburg on October 28th and then at Notre Dame on November 4th. Coach Rapp spoke about the schedule as he said, “4 out of 5 teams from the PVC made the playoffs last year, not to mention the other teams on our schedule that gave us problem last year like Northern and Petersburg.”
Friday’s game at Home vs Pocahontas County will be broadcast live on 94.7FM WELK, pregame will start at 7pm with kickoff scheduled for 7:30pm. For more pictures, audio interviews and printable schedules go to TuckerCountySports.Com.
