#HSFT17: Stop No. 42 – Calhoun City Wildcats

CALHOUN CITY, Miss. (WCBI) — 27 years was a long time to wait.

If you ask anyone from Calhoun City, they’ll say the wait was well worth it.

The Wildcats turned up and brought home the school’s 2nd State Championship this past season. City knows they’ll have the target on their backs going into 2017, but they don’t mind having the pressure squarely on themselves.

“We try not to put pressure on them,” head coach Perry Liles said. “We play every game and play the next play. We look at it in those small perspectives so we don’t get anxious.”

“It’s hard,” senior Keshun Parker said. “We have the target. Every team in 2A wants to come for us. Coaches expect us to do it again from the previous season and we just have to stay focused.”

“Peewee football we won it and last year we won it,” senior Jojo Gray said. “It’s something we do and something we try to do.”

One area Calhoun City won’t have to try and build is the team chemistry.

Being around the Wildcats, you get the sense of a true team that has Its sights set on making history together.

“Everybody is on the same page,” Parker said. “It’s no one-man show. Everybody is together and no one is selfish.”

“We all stick together and like to be around one another,” senior Treshon Cooper said. “That’s the best thing about us is the team work.”

“We tell them to treat people right,” coach Liles said. “We don’t pick on weak people. The ones that stay and go through the hard work pay the price together and that builds team chemistry.”

The Wildcats have become one of the most dominant forces in Mississippi High School Football, but one historic accomplishment remains in front of the Wildcats: that’s going back to back and winning a second straight State Championship.

“That expectation is in the back of their mind,” coach Liles said. “But it won’t effect us. We will have ups and down and we’ll try to do our best each week.”

“It’s our second time to win it this past year,” Gray said. “It’s never been done back to back. It would be real sweet.”

“I want it real bad,” Parker said. “It would prove a point and we’d be the best team to do it.”

Calhoun City will start their title defense at home versus Coffeeville before a tough battle to wrap up August at the Boneyard versus Houston.