Germantown High School, located in Madison County just south of the Nissan plant, has been in existence for just 10 years. Friday night, Oct. 15, the Mavericks will be playing Grenada High School for only the fourth time ever and their second contest ever at Charger Stadium.
The opponent will be another of the gauntlet that is Class 6A, Region 1 for the Chargers. Despite Germantown being 3-4 on the season and 1-2 in the Region, GHS Coach Ashley Kuhn sends his team into battle against a team that has played a number of close games and sports two of the state’s best athletes.
“They have a really good bunch of athletes on both sides of the football,” Kuhn said. “It’s a team that has been in every game and had a chance to win. They will present us a lot of problems.”
Branson Robinson, a 5-foot-10, 220-pound senior, is considered the No. 2 running back in the country, according to ESPN. He ran for 101 yards on 20 carries in last week’s 37-28 loss at Oxford. It was his first game back in three weeks having bothered by a hamstring injury. Robinson committed to Georgia back in July.
“He is an outstanding back, but they have two others that are very good,” Kuhn said. “Offensively, they have been close to 50-50 run and pass. They come at you with multiple looks. The biggest thing we will have to do is a good job of tackling them.”
The other player drawing a lot of nationwide attention is Zxavian Harris, a 6-foot-8, 360-pound tackle, who has verbally committed to Ole Miss. In last week’s loss at Oxford, Harris finished with 15 total tackles, a sack and a fumble recovery.
Veteran Coach Scott Brown was named head coach in July when Tim Shramek announced he was taking a job with the Mississippi High School Activities Association. It was easy to move Brown up into the head spot. He had previous coaching stints at Clinton, Northwest Rankin, Pontotoc and Germantown. During his time at Clinton, he worked with Shramek at Clinton.
“The coaching change happened late in the game and we were fortunate that everyone had been hired and was already on staff,” Brown said. “It was the best possible scenario for the players and the program.”
The football program is still undergoing a development process. In the first two years of the school, they were in Class 4A. They moved up to Class 5A for the next five years before moving to 6A in 2019. Shramek and Brown are the only coaches in program history.
Meanwhile, the Grenada Chargers are off to a 5-2 start in their first appearance in Class 6A in six seasons. The team has won all of its non-division games and opened region play with losses to Tupelo (35-6) and Madison Central (35-0). Last week, the Chargers won a 43-14 decision over Murrah for their initial Region win. A win Friday would clinch a winning season for the Chargers.
Senior Joe Moss ran for 1,000 yards by Week 4 of the season against DeSoto Central. Currently, he has 1,219 yards on 167 carries and a total of 10 touchdowns. He was recently selected for the Bernard Blackwell Mississippi Association of Coaches All-Star Football Game at Gulfport on Dec. 18 at Gulfport.
Defensively, Jalon Townes and Dtrevion Parker have been among the leading tacklers.
Kickoff is slated for 7 p.m. at Charger Stadium. The game is dubbed as the annual Wounded Warrior contest. During pregame, the names of those that lost their lives the last 20 years in the fight for freedom will be announced. All members of the military are invited to attend.
