Bearden fighting through some injuries before Catholic game

After staying largely healthy for the first half of the season, the Bulldogs have found themselves fighting off injuries to key players in the past few weeks. As they head into their regular season finale against Catholic tonight at 7:30 (TV: tssaanetwork.com/bearden), they hope to see as many starters on the field as possible. One of the concerns after last week’s game against West was the shoulder injury to senior quarterback Nicky Frizen. He aggravated his shoulder at the end of Bearden’s win against Farragut, and was taken out of the game late against West because of a hard hit. Despite all of this, the Coaches have not seen Frizen’s performance in practice suffer this past week, and they expect him to play tonight close to full strength. “It’s not limiting him in practice or anything, so I don’t think we’ll limit him in any way in the things we ask him to do,” Coach Brad Taylor said. Senior Trent Waters sat out of Bearden’s game against Heritage with an ankle sprain, but came back to play against West. Coach Taylor says he is still “taking care of [his ankle],” but he is expected to start tonight. One player who will not play tonight, however, is senior linebacker Jake Jolley. Jolley has sat out of the past two games because of an injury to his Achilles tendon, and although the coaches can only guess when and if he will return, Coach Taylor says that from what he has seen, Achilles injuries “can take a while.” Aidan Sears is the sports editor for The Bark. Follow The Bark on Twitter @BeardenBARK, and like The Bark (Bearden High School) on Facebook.