One of the biggest local storylines of prep football’s 2025 season is being written at one of Hamilton County’s smallest high schools.
With an enrollment of close to 300, Sale Creek continues to make big news in Jason Fitzgerald’s third season in charge of the program. The Panthers’ 18-12 overtime win in their TSSAA Region 3-1A opener Friday night at Whitwell moved their overall record to 7-0; until this year, they had never opened a season with as many as three straight wins.
It also put Sale Creek — which debuted at No. 10 in last week’s Class 1A poll for the first state ranking in Panthers history — in position to host a playoff game in the first round next month, which would be another program first in a season that continues to add such accomplishments but still has room for more. Despite making the playoffs the past seven seasons, the Panthers have never advanced past the first round.
Much as Fitzgerald did at previous coaching stops with Meigs County, where he turned a program that had not finished with a winning record in eight years into back-to-back state runners-up in Class 2A, and Hixson, where he guided the Wildcats to consecutive seasons of seven-plus wins for the first time in 50 years, he has raised the level of play and expectations at Sale Creek.
The Panthers shut out Whitwell in the final two quarters of regulation plus overtime, turning the Tigers away on two possessions that ended inside the 10-yard line.