Sports Editor

It hasn’t been as easy a year as Charles Henderson head coach Carl Hollis might be accustom to, but the calendar reads 2000 now and CHHS will be looking to change with the times.

To say the Trojans have taken their lumps early is an understatement. Hollis hoped that playing a very tough schedule early would help his team emerge well-rounded and ready for anything down the stretch.

Now is the time for his team to show the fruits of his thinking. The coach still feels that his team can make something out of this season, but also thinks they have a long way to go as well.

"Somewhere down the line something has to mean something to you and you have to sacrifice," Hollis said of his team. "We came out of that Dothan Tournament saying we were going to work hard at making some adjustments and try and get better focus so we could turn our season around. That didn’t happen. We’ve found our identity, we’ve just got to focus more on what we need to be doing."

Tonight’s game against Stanhope will be the perfect opportunity for the Trojans to prove how focused they are. CHHS will be facing a team they have made a habit of beating over the past few years and to really get a grip on the Area race and continue their dominance they will have to show up strong.

"They’re coming in to whup us," Hollis said of Stanhope. "I think everybody we’ve played has come in here trying to whup us. The teams we’ve dominated over the last two years really want to beat us because they took some pretty good beatings from us. I can’t much blame them. You don’t always like to keep getting beat by the same people.

"Tomorrow night will be a good test for us," he continued. "It’s an area ball game and it will let me know what these kids really want. Wether they want to win or if they just want to go through the motions. We’ve been through the motions early this year and we could have won some that we’ve lost. It will tell me what we’re made out of."

Tipoff for the first game is 5 p.m.