16 THE RIVER VALLEY REPORT FOOTBALL PREVIEW | 8.11.2024

HAROLD MCILVAIN II

SPECIAL TO RIVER VALLEY DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

CLARKSVILLE— During the River Valley Democrat-Gazette area media day, a key talking point for Clarksville was winning a game for the first time since 2021. The Panthers with their play look to make that not a part of their discourse by the end of the season.

Mitchell Powers takes over for Clarksville as a first-year coach, but he isn’ t lacking any experience with the program. This will be his 10th year on staff and has hit the ground running to get the Panthers back in the win column again. When Clarksville lines up against rival Ozark in the first game of the season, it will have been 1,029 days since a victory.

“ It’ s been a while,” Powers said of the program’ s last win.“ Wins are hard to come by. We’ ll take any of them. But the biggest thing is rebuilding the culture. It hasn’ t been where it needs to be. Every competitor wants to win football games, but there are ways to win off the field, too. We are working on the big picture and feel the wins will come. The numbers have been solid overall this summer. We’ ve had more seventh graders than ever show up. We have 70 on our JV roster. Senior high numbers are lower than we’ d like, but we are trying to build up to that. The guys that are in this are consistent for us though.”

Clarksville athletics as a whole have not been a stranger to success. The boys soccer team, the boys swimming team and the girls swimming team are all coming off state championships seasons. The football Panthers are hungry to join in on the fun of winning.

Senior quarterback Angel Alvarez is set to guide the offense, which features eight returning starters that scored a season-high 31 points against conference champion Farmington last year in 5A-West Conference play. Alvarez has split time at quarterback the past two seasons. He now seeks a breakout in his final year in an offense shifting from single wing to more spread concepts.

“ We are shooting for more,” Alvarez said about winning a game this season.“ There could be a celebration. I’ m excited about opening up the offense. We all love to throw it, sling it around and have fun. Everybody is looking good this summer. We’ ll need everybody. We are up to the challenge this year. We might not be up to the numbers of other schools, but we feel we still will be in the games. There is a lot of pride in every sport at Clarksville. We still have trust from our fans. We are just waiting to win some, too.”

Ryder Miranda, Brack Denton, Ba Cho, Rylan Melson, Juan Gonzalez and Cyprus Tuck look to be key offensive weapons. The line upfront will be guided by Bo Davis, Ben Holland and Cole Frizzell.

The defense returns eight starters with Brack Denton( second-most team tackles), Denver Pickartz( third-most team tackles) and newcomer Trey Turner, among others, looking to slow down the high-powered

CLARKSVILLE PANTHERS

offenses of the 5A-West.

“ We’ ve told our guys that we don’ t have a bad team on our schedule anywhere,” Powers said.“ For our guys, we talk about barriers. You hear about the schedule, that you can’ t compete and other outside noise they hear all the time. Everyone in some shape or form has barriers, but they can’ t change how we do things. It goes back to the culture change. We are excited about this year.”

* – Denotes 5A-West conference game. All kickoffs 7 p. m. unless noted.

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