Comets look to continue tough non-district schedule

Sep. 22—Coming off a road victory that saw the the Comets offense shine for 76 points, Velma-Alma will look to continue a tough non-district schedule this week with an opponent who knocked them out of the playoffs a few years ago.

The Velma-Alma Comets, 2-1 after winning 76-36 over Caddo, received selection as the DSPAC team of the week ahead of their match with Pioneer-Pleasant in this week's Thursday home game.

Sophomore quarterback Mikey Griffith has been one of the bright spots for the Comets. Coach Randy Norton also said the younger players are coming up big in their debut on the varsity roster.

One of the keys to the game was the defense coming up in big spots and Norton believes they have been the key to the success so far this season.

"I felt really good about last week. We played offense really well and had a lot of big plays that were very explosive," Norton said. "Defense actually played pretty well. We had three plays that we gave up long touchdowns on busted plays. We have had some young kids playing that had not had a lot of reps in practice. As a whole, we played really hard and played good assignment football and it was good win for us against Caddo."

In 2020, the Comets made it all the way to the Class B Quarterfinals when they hosted Pioneer-Pleasant Vale,a team that took the 36-32 victory to move on to the final four teams in the class.

This will be the first time these two teams have met since that game. Norton said while having a different team this year from that previous one, he believes his team has progressed well.

"Our only full time starter on defense that came back was Crue Garrett and Cooper Paramore played a lot along with Joseph Davis who played a lot until he got injured," Norton said. "The other six guys on defense hadn't started and played a lot of downs for us on defense, so I have been really pleased with the way the defense has been going. The kids are just playing assignment football and learning to run the ball and get after the ball and we have created turnovers. So hopefully this week we can create. I would love to have three turnovers again this week and I think if that happens that will put us in a good chance to win a game."

Playing the tough competition in Class B for non-district, Norton feels confident going into the final two non-district games that his team will show up ready Oct. 7 when the district season opens for the Comets.

"We wanted to play some really good teams that way we can fix the problems we need to fix before district this year," Norton said. "You know, even the loss to Hollis — which we don't want to lose and we had our chances to win that game — I feel like if we played them again we would beat them, but those just allowed us to see where we needed to go to work and the improvements we made. We feel really good about where we are at."

Kickoff will take place at 7 p.m. Sept. 22 at Velma-Alma as the Comets look to face off against Pioneer-Pleasant in the fourth game of the 2022 season.

The regular hours for DSPAC are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 1-8 p.m. on Sunday with fees varying for day passes and memberships. The park is located at 400 W. Martin Luther King Blvd. in Duncan. Calls can be directed to 580-467-7877.