Fall is making its appearance, and with the start of fall comes the annual Homecoming football game. The Homecoming Game is a highly anticipated event that gets everyone pumped up and excited for the school dance. Our school kicked off the Homecoming weekend this year with a great win against Smith-Cotton. With the excitement and support from the student section, the Battle football team kept their motivation and determination and led us to victory with a final score of 50-15.

As the game began, the Battle team started slowly with a couple of mistakes. However, when interviewing Coach Strange about a player he thinks played well during the Homecoming game, he said, “Garrett Murray had a really good game that day. The thing about Garrett’s game is that even after starting the game with a couple of fumbles a lot of people would have folded or rolled over after starting the game with some mistakes like that, but we wanted to keep giving him the ball because we knew he would respond well, and he made up for it for the rest of the game with some really big plays.” For the rest of the first and second quarters, Battle came back strong.

As halftime started, the band and color guard kicked it off with a performance, the show ending with the band playing “Bad Guy” by Billie Eilish. Then, with anticipation buzzing from the crowd, the Homecoming King and Queen were finally announced. This year our Homecoming court included, Allison Bivens, Charlie Hazelrigg, Dy’Lon Pittman, Ethan Magee, Jerry Francisco, Josh Johnson, Jackie Ozanich, Jeffery Painter, Mya Martinez, and Tavian Brian. Our 2022 Battle Homecoming King and Queen were introduced as Mya Martinez and Josh Johnson.
Martinez said, “It was very overwhelming, I wanted to hug everyone, I felt very loved at that moment.”
Josh Johnson said, “With being up against Ethan and Dy’Lon I thought if anything Dy’Lon was going to win since he had the football votes, but when I heard my name I was shocked.” With the Homecoming royalty announced, the halftime show ended and the third quarter started.

As the football game progressed, Battle stayed in the lead with 29 points. Senior, Justin Goolsby played exceedingly well in the last two quarters scoring a total of 5 touchdowns for Battle, giving Battle the win.

When talking to Coach Dubinski, he said: “Yeah, our defense played the best they had all season and our offense has done well all season, it was a big night, anytime you have success it’s really easy to stay motivated.”

Battle won their first Homecoming football game since 2020. Sophomore Kyren Hunter said, “The team felt amazing and everyone was hyped over winning one of the biggest games of the season.”
Coach Strange said, “It felt great to win, knowing that you’ve put in a long hard week of practice, and it paid off, it was a satisfying feeling.”

Feeling great after the win, Homecoming weekend was off to a great start.