Friday Night Lights: Pinckneyville, Nashville Hunt SIRR Wins

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[After taking it on the nose against Anna-Jonesboro last week, the Pinckneyville Panthers will probably be glad to see just about anyone else on the other side of the football on Friday night for their week five contest.

The Wildcats took it to the Panthers 49-7, pounding away with the run game early and often to build a 28-0 lead by halftime.

"We'd worked all week on who had what," said Panthers' head coach Tod Rushing. "I don't know, we went into a freeze out there. The kids know it now, we watched film and they understand."

Penalties have become a bit of a factor in Pinckneyville's season thus far, with a pass interference call impacting the West Frankfort loss, and two 15-yard penalties killing any and all momentum the Panthers were able to get going in the second half against Anna-Jonesboro.

"The penalties hurt us, but what really hurts us is the way we react to penalties," said Rushing.

"Instead of coming back with fire in our eyes (after the two 15-yard penalties), we kind of hung our heads and then let them score again, and now you're in trouble (down 35-0)."

Until that point, both the offense and defense had shown drastic improvement from the first half, a theme that has been fairly common through the first four weeks of the season.

"When we do things right, we look pretty good at times," noted Rushing. "Just as much as other teams have stopped us, we've stopped ourselves. It's hard to put your finger on it, it's mental errors. Against Red Bud in the second half, against West Frankfort in the second half, we had our minds focused and showed what we're capable of. We've got to play a little looser and more aggressive."

Despite the poor start, Rushing says his team isn't giving up, and he and his coaches aren't giving up on them, either.

Rushing attributed the mistakes to his players not trusting one another to fulfill their assignments. "They have to trust each other and do their job," Rushing said, "that's what we focused on this week. We're going to see something similar (with Nashville)."

"We're 0-4 and a lot of guys could just be saying the heck with it, but they haven't," Rushing said. "They've prepared hard, they've done the things we've asked them to do."

Standing in the way of the Panthers' first victory this Friday are the Nashville Hornets, who will be coming off a 6-3 loss to Chester this past week.

"They're huge up front," Rushing said of the Hornets' line. "It's down to being very physical, being aggressive, and doing your job, and trusting yourselves."

"They have the capability of putting a lot of points on the board," he added. "If you can keep them in check, you're going to stay in the game, but you can't let them break out of there and get those big plays."

The Panthers will hope to have a second half to their season that's been as strong as the second half of a couple of their games.