HAHIRA – Following a season that saw them take their lumps, the Valwood Valiants are hoping to find strength in numbers in 2022.

Last season, the Valiants started 1-5 and limped their way to a 3-9 season that saw them go winless in region play. Though the Valiants managed to secure a playoff berth and avenged an early season loss to rival Southland Academy in the first round, the season did not go as planned for the 2017 GISA 3A state champions and 2019 state finalists.

After going 19-7 in his first two years as Valiants head coach, Justin Henderson has seen his team finish just 6-16 in the last two seasons with one playoff berth.

Heading into the preseason, Henderson feels the team finally has a deep enough roster to begin to turn things around at Valwood.

“I feel better than I have the last couple of years as us overall,” Henderson said. “We’ve had some really good players the last two years, just team-wise, not really able to put it together. Overall, as a team, I think we’re better. I think we’re better up front on both sides of the ball. The numbers are up so we’re kind of able to two-platoon the offensive and defensive line which is huge; huge for practice and camp is a different animal when you’re able to put your No. 1 O-line against your No. 1 D-line and let them go at it. We’ve competed in an OTA and I felt like we held our ground pretty good against some pretty good schools.”

Offensively, the Valiants will be looking to provide more of a scoring punch than last season. The 2021 Valiants averaged just 19 points per game.

The offense will surely feel the absence of seniors Dru Womack, Noah Pettigrew and Tajh Sanders.

Womack played in 10 games for the Valiants, throwing for 981 yards with eight touchdowns and eight interceptions while rushing for 175 yards with three more scores.

Pettigrew, the team’s stud at running back, rushed for 1,250 yards with 14 touchdowns. A University of North Carolina commit for wrestling, Pettigrew also started at linebacker last season and recorded 40 tackles and seven tackles for loss last season.

Sanders, a Western Illinois commit, did a little bit of everything for the Valiants – lining up out wide at receiver, setting up in the backfield as a running back and even tried his hand at quarterback last year. Sanders had 51 carries for 324 yards with four touchdowns while reeling in 35 catches for 490 yards and five touchdowns.

This year, the Valiants have an all-new crew at quarterback as 6-foot junior Kyle Beath figures to be the team’s starting quarterback when the season opens Aug. 26 against St. Andrews. Behind Beath, the Valiants have junior Mason Barfield and freshman Dax Womack in the QB room.

For third consecutive year, the Valiants will have a different starter at QB.

“We’re replacing a quarterback again this year,” Henderson said. “Kyle Beath, right now, is the frontrunner. He’s having a good summer. He’s definitely going to be able to run it for us.”

Replacing Pettigrew as the team’s top running back will be Mills Moorman. Moorman had 31 carries for 98 yards for the Valiants last season. Moorman will split time with 6-foot, 185-pound back Triston White and junior Dallas Hatfield in the backfield.

Senior wide out and two-year starter Eli Pay is back for the Valiants. Though he only caught six passes for 60 yards as a junior, Henderson expects Pay to be a threat with an increased workload.

Outside of Pay, senior Hayes Perry has had a great summer by Henderson’s own admission. Offensively, the Valiants expect a lot from senior tight end Worth Kimbro. 

Henderson calls Kimbro “the team’s go-to guy in space.” Kimbro caught seven passes for 76 yards last season, though he spent much of his time at defensive end.

“He’s come on the last two years unbelievably,” Henderson said of Kimbro. “I thought we were gonna have to turn him into a guard about three years ago and then, all of a sudden, he started playing pretty good. He will be a two-way guy. He’ll be our best defensive end as well as our tight end.

“We’ve got pieces in place. We’ve got a lot to clean up obviously as everybody does in late July. That OTA we had recently was good for us. We got a lot of good film. We kind of got smacked in the mouth early and we responded well. Now the challenge is, ‘OK guys, let’s get back to starting fast,’ whether it’s an OTA, whether it’s a 7-on-7 or whether it’s Friday. We were better than our record last year, but it seemed like at the start of the game we’d be down 14, 21 points in the blink of an eye. Then, we’d hang in there the rest of the time but you’re fighting an uphill battle after that. I feel like we’ve got pieces in place and I think we’re ahead of the game right now.”

Defensively, the Valiants struggled mightily much of the season. The team allowed 33.6 points per game – giving up 40 points or more in five games, losing all five of them.

As a defensive-minded head coach, Henderson felt his team’s combination of youth and lack of depth really put it behind the proverbial 8-ball much of the season.

Going into preseason camp, Henderson is much more confident in his group defensively; especially at linebacker. Kimbro  (42 tackles, nine tackles for loss) returns as the Valiants’ leading tackler from a season ago along with Pay, Moorman, Perry and Scott Giddens.

“Us being young up front the last couple of years and us being really thin as far as numbers up front, we were really having to load the box against some spread teams, which is dangerous, just to stop the run so that put a lot of pressure on our secondary,” Henderson said. “I think our box is gonna be a lot better and that’s gonna really help us out to be able to bump those linebackers out in space and help us in the passing game and still be able to hold our own in the run game.

“Defensively, we’ve got three good candidates for my two inside linebackers and that’s a plus also. Those guys are the quarterbacks of the defense and they’ve got to know what to do and how to get lined up. We’re still working some stuff out in the secondary on defense. Camp will help us out a lot.”

Following the team’s season opener at home against St. Andrews, the Valiants will face a stiff road test right out of the gate as they travel to St. Simons Island to face the Frederica Knights Sept. 2.

The following week, the Valiants welcome Georgia Christian, Robert Toombs Christian to town before getting back on the road to face North Florida Christian Sept. 23 and Tiftarea Sept. 30.

After an open week, the Valiants return to action at home Oct. 14 against Terrell Academy followed by road games at Southland Academy and Deerfield Windsor before wrapping up the regular season at home against Brookwood Nov. 4.

“Our schedule’s not as tough as it has been this year. We do have those two staples (Frederica and NFC) on our schedules. Those are good road tests,” Henderson said. “Frederica, they’re always a top 5 in the state team at the end of the year and it’s not a terrible drive so we wanted to keep them. North Florida Christian, the same thing. They’ve always got dudes that present major problems and we want to be able to go down there and compete with them. But we do need some games where we can build some confidence.

“The schedule looks good for what we’re in. I’ll call it what it is. We’re in a rebuilding phase of our program right now and we’ve got a ton of young guys, like I said. I expect a bunch of people to play in a bunch of football games early as we see how this thing shakes out. The best coach in the world is competition and I think, for the first time in four years, because of our numbers we’ve got positions that we don’t have defined starters yet. We’ve got two or three names attached to each of those positions. I’ll fire an outside linebacker and get the next guy in. There’s no better motivator than the bench. That butt hits bench and something clicks in the brain that ‘Hey, you better start playing better. That’s where we’re at and it’s a great spot to be.”

Shane Thomas is the sports editor at the Valdosta Daily Times.