Long County’s first football game of the season is Friday against Islands High in Savannah.
The Sharks are 0-1, having fallen to Calvary Day last week 20-0. Last year, Islands struggled to find success, posting a 1-9 record.

Though Friday will be the first of the season game for Long County, the team is coming off a successful 28-6 scrimmage over Claxton two weeks ago.
Last year, the Blue Tide’s record was 3-7. Long County head coach Eric McNair said he expects his team to do better in 2016, but improvement will depend on his team discipline.

“We need to be more consistent on both sides of the ball, undisciplined play leads to a lot of mistakes, and football is a game of mistakes, those teams who make the least usually win,” McNair said.
Long County also moves up from 2-AA into Region 2-AAA. McNair said he expects the competition to be tough and fast.
“I think almost every team in this region has at least one Division I prospect on their team,” the coach said. “Looking at teams such as Liberty, Appling, Pierce, Brantley and Tattnall it is not a slouch region by any means. These are all playoff ready teams and all seem to be senior heavy as we are.

It will be a very wide open, fast level of play as they are all spread football teams.”
He said he hopes the scrimmage will be a springboard formore success.

“We take games one at a time,” McNair said. “We focus on what we need to do to win that one game, and never look ahead. Ultimately, a winning season and a playoff berth would be a huge step for the program, but we’re not looking that far ahead.”
According to MaxPreps.com, the Sharks are ranked the #52 AAA team in the state, while Long County is ranked #45.

This is the first time the schools have played each other. The game begins at 7:30 p.m. Pick up a Sunday paper to find out who won.