Nevada eyes strong finish to football season

In a battle of football teams that could easily sport much better records than their 2-6 marks, Nevada High School hosts Seneca today at 7 p.m. at Logan Field.

Nevada, which started the season winning two of its first three games before quarterback Ronnie Herda was lost for the season due to a knee injury in Week 4, has plenty to play for in the final two weeks of the season.

"We feel like things are getting better," Nevada first-year head coach Shannon Jolley said. "A win would be big for our morale.

"We have a lot of kids who have played football in Nevada for a lot of years," Jolley continued. "We want to try to send the seniors out with a district championship, or at least an increase in their win total on the season. Anything we can do for our seniors is a priority of ours."

Jolley is encouraged by how his team has practiced leading up to tonight's game.

"I feel like this week we've been pretty upbeat. The kids have stayed focused with an understanding that we can still win the district championship. We are excited about the opportunity to come out and compete again (tonight)."

Nevada would need to win its final two games to have an opportunity at the district title. The Tigers lost their district opener 26-0 at unbeaten Cassville last week.

Seneca dropped a 22-20 decision to 7-1 Monett in their district opener last week.

"They are a balanced football team that played Monett tough," Jolley said. "They are very competitive and their record is not indicative of their team.

"They play pretty solid on both sides of the football. They have two strong backs; it takes more than one hit to bring them down."

Nevada has demonstrated it has the ability to have success on offense under the guidance of sophomore quarterback Austin Baldwin -- if the Tigers take care of the football.

Nevada racked up 33 points in a two-point loss to McDonald County in their final Southwest Conference contest.

Jolley pointed to turnovers -- an area that has plagued the Tigers in recent weeks -- as a key to the game.

"The major key is our ball control and keeping care of the football and not experiencing turnovers."

Nevada finishes the regular season with a home game against Monett on Thursday, Nov. 1.