By Staff
Scot Beard
THARPTOWN – The Tharptown football team will be fighting for its playoff life tonight as it travels to Florence to take on Shoals Christian.
While Shoals Christian (0-6, 0-5) has been eliminated from playoff contention, the Wildcats are still mathematically alive.
In order to earn a playoff berth, Tharptown must win the remainder of its region games – to improve to 4-4 in the region – and hope Phillips (3-2 in region play) and Waterloo (2-3 in region play) finish the season with a total of three region wins.
The other scenario that could get the Wildcats into the playoffs is if they finish in a three-way tie with Phillips and Waterloo and the tiebreaking procedure works out in Tharptown's favor.
If Tharptown finishes in a tie with only one of those teams, Phillips or Waterloo would advance because those teams defeated the Wildcats during the regular season.
Tonight's game will be tough because the Flame will be trying to play spoiler. Shoals Christian reached the third round of the state playoffs last season but has struggled this year.
The game could be an offensive shootout as both defenses are allowing around 40 points per game.
It could also be an offensive struggle as Shoals Christian has averaged 13.3 points per game while Tharptown has scored only 10.2 points per game.