Gilmer flag football wrapped up its inaugural season with two more league matchups.
GHS was in Fannin County last Thursday and also faced Dawson County. The host Rebels won 27-7 in the nightcap, while Dawson secured a 25-6 victory.
“We didn’t do as well as we hoped,” said head coach Chad Miller. “We had a pretty hard fought battle but didn’t execute as well as we needed to. I’ve got to be proud of the girls’ effort and how hard they played and learned this first season without having much experience before.”
Gilmer started the season 3-3 with wins over Ringgold (18-14), Dalton Academy (14-0) and Rome (13-7). The Lady Cats went 2-6 over its final eight games, which included a 2-5 region record.
The Cats won region games over Dalton Academy (19-0) and LaFayette (14-12). Their region losses came against Heritage (14-0), Ringgold (28-26) and LaFayette (14-0). GHS was fifth in the region and missed the state playoffs by one spot.
“I’m really proud of how far we’ve come and what we’ve learned this year,” Miller said. “The other coaches I talked to couldn’t believe we were a first-year team. Even talking to Fannin’s coach, they didn’t win a game their first season and he said, ‘Your girls are really good, and you just need to keep it up.’ That’s what I’ve heard from most of the coaches that we’ve played against and have experience.
“For a first-year team, we’re kind of ahead of where most are. That’s a positive.”
Many of the players on the team were completely new to the sport. GHS returns all but one start next season and Miller is looking forward to what lies ahead.
“We’re going to build upon what we have,” Miller said. “I’m looking at what we did well and what we struggled with and want to make some adjustments. I want to try to incorporate more of a running game mixed in with the passing. In the first year it was hard to do both with the personnel so we kind of focused on getting the passing game going. Now that we have a base set up, we can start tweaking and adjusting. And I picked up a lot from other teams we’ve played through the year that we can incorporate into our arsenal.
“Defensively we need to work more on the fundamental stuff. Some of that just takes time to develop. I feel like we’ll have a much better season next year.”