Prep notebook: Georgetown County teams finally getting back on field

With students in Georgetown County heading back to school on Tuesday, that means the three area varsity football programs there are getting back on the field for the first time in more than a week.

Their turnaround from practice to games will happen in a flash. And yet, getting ready to put kids on the field is still somewhat secondary.

Carvers Bay coach Nate Thompson said Monday that while his team was allowed to practice on Monday in preparation for Tuesday’s home game against Green Sea Floyds, he was unsure of how many players he’d even have available. Several players on the Bears’ 32-man roster were displaced by the recent flooding and the staff was simply trying to track down those who’d moved in with family members either in Hemingway or other parts of the Grand Strand.

“We want to make sure the ones we can get, we get. The ones we can’t, we understand,” Thompson said. “We don’t want kids to feel that football is the end-all, be-all.”

However, he said it may be a nice distraction for some who’ve been awaiting some return to normalcy. For the Georgetown County programs, they’re going to be immersed in football at a quicker pace than they’re accustomed to.

Carvers Bay will play Green Sea Floyds on Tuesday before heading to Lake View on Friday. Waccamaw will play at Loris on Tuesday and then at Aynor on Friday. Georgetown is at home against North Myrtle Beach on Tuesday and Lake City on Friday.

For each, getting ready for two all-important region contests that will take place in a span of four days will be as much about shaking off rust as individual game-planning.

Until Monday, Georgetown had not put on pads or gathered as a team since it defeated St. James on Oct. 1. Bulldogs coach Bradley Adams said his team, even a number of players who were displaced, has been accounted for in full and that all of them were at a scrambled practice in advance of Tuesday’s huge region contest against North Myrtle Beach.

Waccamaw went through a light practice on Oct. 1 in preparation for its Region VIII-AA opener against Mullins. However, that game – originally scheduled for the following evening – was postponed until Nov. 6.

The Warriors were then forced to wait an additional four days to play Loris.

Carvers Bay moved up its game against Creek Bridge, scheduled for Oct. 2, to the previous day. The Bears won 33-6 in a game that had the makings of a springboard into the rest of the region slate. But Thompson’s team had not practiced since.

He was part of the Conway staff in 1989 that sat idle for “three or four days” after Hurricane Hugo made landfall. But he said the recent flooding has affected his current team significantly more.

He believed he’d have enough players to fulfill the commitment of Tuesday’s game, although he said between the quick turnaround and likely losses from the roster, vanilla was the only way to go.

“You keep it as basic as possible,” he said. “You have to realize whatever you did before was getting ready for other games. You don’t try to overwhelm them. You don’t put in anything new this late.

“You can look at film until you turn blue in the face. You have to transfer it to your kids.”

HTC GAME OF THE WEEK

HTC has announced its next two Games of the Week. The provider will head to Socastee this Friday for the Braves’ Region VI-AAAA game against Conway. It will be the second time this year the teams have played, with the Tigers winning 43-8 on Sept. 4. That game will be available live on HTCConnect.com, and it will be aired on a delay on HTC Channel 4.

On Oct. 23, HTC will then broadcast North Myrtle Beach’s trip to St. James. That game will be aired live both on television and the internet feed.

This story was originally published October 12, 2015 at 4:10 PM with the headline "Prep notebook: Georgetown County teams finally getting back on field."