THOMASVILLE – A 1-3 start was not what the Thomasville Bulldogs envisioned in Jonathan DeLay’s first year as head coach. But the team is making strides in the non-region portion of the Bulldogs schedule.

Thomasville looks to rebound from last week’s 31-7 loss at Bainbridge when it hosts Tift County on Friday.

“It definitely hasn’t been the start we wanted record-wise, but we are making improvements. Last week, it was a week of missed opportunities. We had some things where we had Bainbridge on the ropes and we just couldn’t capitalize on our opportunities,” he said. “We let them hang around in the ballgame and they eventually put some scores together in the third and fourth quarters. We were dominating the first half on defense especially, but just couldn’t punch it in offensively.

“We didn’t play as good as we did against Cairo (the prior week). The hope this week is to get that win going into the open week so that we can springboard into region play.”

Thomasville has one final non-region game this week as Class 6-A Tift County comes to Veterans Memorial Stadium on Friday night. The Bulldogs look to notch their second win against the Blue Devils with an open week looming next week.

“You definitely want that good taste in your mouth going into the open week. I just want that confidence for the kids to know that we are the team that we know we are and go and play like that,” DeLay said. “That’s the thing we’ve stressed this week. We’ve had three really good days of practice so far. I hope they continue to do that on Wednesday and Thursday, put five real good days together and show the bi-product of those five good days on Friday.”