Decatur finishes season, honors seniors

— Six Decatur senior players and their parents were honored during Friday’s game against Magazine.

Seniors Blake Wilkins, Taylor Pickup, Brady Graves, Cody Ben, Steven Nixon and David Castaneda were all recognized in a ceremony before Friday’s game - the final game of the season for Decatur.

“I can’t say enough good things about our graduating seniors ... We’re going to miss those young men. They worked hard for us,” said head coach Stan Ellis.

The Bulldogs played a clean game and gave agood performance Friday night, according to Ellis. But even so, they were no match for Magazine, ranked No. 4 in the state. The Rattlers won the game 56-0.

“Magazine is awesome. They are good people and they are the best team I’ve seen this year,” Ellis said.

Seven different players, including two defenders, scored for Magazine during the game.

Cory Chambers, Josh Dority, Quinton Roberson and John Terry rushed for first-quarter touchdowns for the Rattlers. Long Yang added a second quarter rushing score.

Linebacker Josh Britton then returned an interception 45 yards for a touchdown and defensive end Jay Mova returned a fumble 25 yards for a score.

Long Yang returned the second-half kickoff for Magazine’s final touchdown of the night.

Decatur ended its season 1-9 overall and 1-7 in conference. Now that the Bulldogs have a season’s worth of experience under their belt and plenty of participation, Ellis said he is optimistic about next year.

“I wish the season had lasted longer. We were finally picking up offense and making it look right,” he said.

“Our goal at the beginning of the year was literally just to improve everyweek. We had so many kids that had never played before or had never played high school football. By the end of the season we spent our time running the offense instead of learning the offense.

“I was really proud of the kids, the ones that stuck it out and stayed with it the whole time,” Ellis said.

The Bulldogs ended the season with 23 healthy players and three injured for a total of 26 on the roster. The team will be graduating six seniors and moving eight to 10 junior high players to the senior high team. Ellis said he expects to see more than 20 players on next year’s team with high school experience.

Sports, Pages 9 on 11/10/2010