The Winona football team will hit the playing field as a 3A school for the first time at 4 p.m. Saturday when the Tigers take on Senatobia, a 4A school, in a jamboree at Oxford High School. The varsity and junior varsity teams will both play a half game.
“We're just getting ready to play,” coach Joey Tompkins said of the team's early practices. “We have a lot of guys coming back, so there's not a whole lot of teaching we have to do.
“You have 16, 17 and 18 year olds so you have to drill in their bodies and heads over and over and over again in practice until they get better at it.”
Winona is coming off an 11-4 season that saw the Tigers reach the 2A championship game. Because of the merger with Montgomery County, Winona moves up to 3A.
The first regular season game is Aug. 17 at Strayhorn, a team the Tigers beat 58-0 last year. But Tompkins said “We're not looking past Strayhorn.”
The first home game is Aug. 24 against Choctaw County, which reached the third round of the 3A playoffs last year.
