Wills Point — Gladiators on a mission! The Italy Gladiators (5-0,8-4), who are enjoying a 7 game win streak (8 if you count the automatic bi-district win Italy earned by being district champions), made their fans proud Friday night by punishing a now 10-1-1 Honey Grove squad that didn’t seem to take the Gladiators seriously going in. Italy who? Well, now Warrior Nation not only knows who Italy is but will likely never forget. It’s the playoff games you loose that are tough to let go and the Warriors, with their only loss at the swords of the Gladiators, will be feeling the sting from power back Ryheem Walker for awhile. They will find it hard to forget Marvin Cox and his 4 touchdown runs that buried their season….

Honey Grove’s quarterback Jeremy Patt will be haunted by the images of number 50 coming off the edge. His 50th birthday, his 50th wedding anniversary and even 50 cents will conjure up bad memories for the junior QB with Italy’s Zain Byers, a junior defensive end, stalking Patt throughout the game.

Honey Grove’s senior tailback Demontrae Finney will have a hard time finding any highlight reel footage for his vast collection thanks to an unimpressed Gladiator defense that showed the world beater little respect in Wills Point. Let’s just say the Gladiator primary defenders this week in Chase Hamilton, Shad Newman, Jalarnce Lewis, Adrian Reed, Darol Mayberry, Reid Jacinto, Hunter Merimon, Kyle Fortenberry, Eric Carson, Kyle Fortenberry, Trevon Robertson, Hayden Woods, Walker, Cox and Byers won’t be receiving any invitations to any Finney family outings. it would bring up too many painful memories of when Italy removed Honey Grove from the playoffs back in 2012, 33-20.

Go Italy!