Much like the late wrestling legend Randy “Macho Man” Randy Savage during a memorable on-air promo, the Greyhounds are finding themselves “unjustifiably in a person they’d rather not be in.”
A season of ups and downs, one that ended with a pair of region losses, resulted in Jones County tying for fifth in the region, locking the Greyhounds out of the postseason. Ironically, if PSR ratings were in place, as they will be next year, Jones County would have been seeded 24th overall, comfortably in the postseason.
“It’s a deal where sometimes it hurts you, but it would have helped us,” Greyhounds head football coach Justin Montgomery said.
What’s more is that six teams from the Greyhounds’ region would be in the playoffs.
That does little to help JCHS now, however.
“We were disheartened, upset, and frustrated that we were not able to secure one of those wins in the last two games and get in the playoffs,” Montgomery said.
Yes, as disappointing as not spending mid-November prepping for the postseason, it’s also a point of learning, even if those lessons are hard to swallow for a team that was three plays from finishing second in the region.
“You have to look at it from different perspectives, but you have to look at it. Even though it may hurt, you have to grow from it,” Montgomery said. “Having so many underclassmen, they see the details of how one play and can make a difference in a game and how one game can make a difference in a postseason bid.”
Those underclassmen have already jumped in with two feet toward the offseason, one that began last week with multiple days of weight-lifting sessions.
“In our weight room, we’ve already started what we call, ‘the hunt,’” Montgomery said. “We talk about how Greyhounds are traditionally hunting dogs, so this leads us with our lifting into the offseason and to Christmas and January.”
But moving into the offseason doesn’t just drill into the future. It also calls for bidding a fond farewell to a group of seniors that’s been at the forefront of a transition but of the things seen and unseen.
“They’ve gone through a lot. They’ve gone through a coaching change and everything with the way we do things as a program, it changed on them,” Montgomery said. “They did a great job of sticking it out and being resilient.”
