Georgia HS team Phoenix Alpharetta opened up its season with an impressive road shutout win over defending Florida champs the Jacksonville Wolverines.

Alpharetta entered the season with a ton of potential as numbers are strong and the quality and experience high, too. The team returns 12 starters from 2019 and has about 45 players on the roster. The halfback combination of Seb Kennett and John Irwin is very strong and No. 8 Brendan Bibb is also outstanding.

With Craig Allen joining the coaching staff of Buster Kennett and Niall Fenton, Phoenix looked nicely set to start strong and did, beating Jacksonville 26-0.

Next up for Phoenix is Souther Greenville, Bearden out of Tennessee, and possibly another out-of-state team before the Georgia league begins.    

For the Wolverines, this was an evaluation game with the Florida season on the horizon. The defending Florida champs graduated 20 players from their squad—all went to college including four to Iowa Central Community College. So this is a rebuilding year for Jacksonville and they had some lessons to learn.

With 27 new players in the program, Head Coach Aaron Church has reason to be optimistic, but he has a ton of work to do to get the players up to speed. Scrumhalf Tim Ridel, flyhalf Mac Taylor, and fullback VaShonn Mars are all snappy returners.

"We do have the speed and physicality of last year's team," said Church. "We are just light on experience. But the great thing is the average age of the team is 16 with a sprinkle of five 18-year-olds. I am very proud of the strides they have made to this point."