By Fred Guarino
The Lowndes Signal

The good news was that Central High School played its first home football game in two years at its upgraded facilities Friday night.

The bad news was that the Lions played host to 2A the defending state champion Elba Tigers and fell 54-0.

The score was 41-0 at the half.

“I was real glad for our players to be able to face that caliber of team,” Central head football coach James Bibb said. “They’re just a good model team, and, you know, Coach (Scott) Rials does a good job with them.”

Bibb said the top-notch competition not only showed his players but Central High fans and the community “where we are trying to go with football.”

“We would really like to follow in that caliber of team’s footsteps,” he said.

Bibb said Elba was the kind of football program Central wants to build itself to be.

“We just have to take the good with the bad and try to fix it up and get ready to fight again next Friday,” Bibb said.

He said the Lions’ T.J. (Terraris) Saffold is always one of the best athletes on the field regardless of whom Central plays.

“But, you know, can’t rely on one person, we’ve got to have a total team effort and we need every man on the roster to come ready to fight from the trainer down to coach,” he said. “Everybody has to come ready to fight.”

Central suffered a fire that destroyed its field house in 2010 and played the entire last season on the road.

Central 0-3 travels to play Luverne next Friday night.