Samber Seeing Improvement In Panthers

The Stone Memorial Panthers are 2-2 to start the 2024 season and head coach Derek Samber said his team is prepared to face an undefeated Meigs County team this Friday.

Samber said the losses to Cookeville and White County were tough, but was proud of his team’s effort. This week the Panthers will go on the road to face undefeated Meigs County, Samber said playing an unbeaten team on the road does not add extra pressure.

“Pressure is what you feel when you’re not prepared and I can promise you, our kids will be prepared,” Samber said. “They are an undefeated team, they are deserving to be undefeated. I think they’ve ran the clock two of their three games, so they’ve gone undefeated in dominant fashion. But, we’ve got to do our job, that’s a tremendous football team across from us this Friday.”

Meigs County is 3-0 and averaging 35 points a game, while holding opponents to just 11 points a game. Samber said this is just another great opponent on their challenging schedule, but said his tea.

“Ultimately I really feel like we’ve gotten better every week,” Samber said. “Last week’s result wasn’t what we wanted, but a lot of improvements on that film regardless. With a young football team, you just want to see them get better every week and hopefully be good enough throughout the season to get into the postseason.”

And this week the Panthers special teams unit will be much improved with the return of starting kicker Kayne Bosanko. Samber said that while it didn’t affect the team’s decision making last week, it is business as usual for the third phase of the game.

With the halfway point of the season approaching, Samber acknowledged his team’s effort and maturation this season ahead of week 5.

“We’re 2-2 through four games and we have six remaining, I just hope to see growth and improvement,” Samber said. “For such a young and inexperienced team, they have played a good brand of football, disciplined football, protecting the football. So they’re a fun bunch to coach, love our kids and coaches and being around this team for sure.”

Kickoff in Decatur at 7pm Friday.