BULLARD —

BULLARD — Regardless of the fact that the Brook Hill Guard defense prevented Malakoff from scoring on four of the Tigers' five possessions, Guard head coach Terry Pirtle didn't really find all that he was looking for in his club's scrimmage win Friday night at Herrington Stadium.

“Obviously as a coach you are looking for a lot more than just the good, you are looking for the mistakes to correct,” Pirtle said. “ I saw a lot of positives (Friday). I was really proud of the way our kids played hard.”

The miscues that Pirtle did find, didn't appear to have him overly concerned.

“”It makes you feel pretty good to know that if we can correct some stuff that we'll be a pretty good football team.”

After losing 18 lettermen off of last season's TAPPS Division III state champion team, Pirtle and company were looking for some of the Guard's younger players to rise to the challenge and make their presence known at the varsity level.

Many of those newbies seemed to answer the bell against Malakoff, who is predicted to be a playoff team out of District 7-2A-II this season.

“We have to have some of our sophomores step up,” Pirtle said. “We could be starting as many as five or six sophomores on both sides of the ball this year.

“I liked what I saw from our TE/OLB, Malik Alley and Blake Matthews did a good job for us playing

in Ross Lee's old spot on defense. I was also really encouraged by the way Grant Hanks played in the spot vacated by Travis Pirtle.”

Terry Pirtle said that he is already seeing kids step up into many of the vacant spots and the performance from many of those newbies has thus far led Terry Pirtle to believe, that despite tremendous loss to graduation, the excellence of Brook Hill football will be continued in 2012.

Brook Hill will face a far more difficult challenge on Friday (7 p.m. at Roughrider Stadium) when the Guard journey to Shelby County for a date with Class 3A Center.

“We always like to bite off as much as we can and we just hope we haven't bit off too much this time,” Terry Pirtle said. “Center is a good team and a game like this is what we need to get us ready for district in a few weeks.”

Brook Hill opens the regular season on Thur. Aug. 30 by hosting Frankston in the Brook Hill Classic.

Kick-off is slated for 7:30 p.m. at Herrington Stadium.