There’s no doubt that coach Rick Casko and the Cass Colonels would like to be playing for a Region 7A-AAAA playoff berth when they travel north Friday to play the LaFayette Ramblers. But instead of a playoff berth, the Colonels will be looking to break a four-game losing streak and finish the season with five victories — five more than they won all of last year. The bad part of that equation is that, taking into account that Cass does beat LaFayette, four of those victories came against Region 7B-AAAA foes.

“You can look at our season from all different directions,” Casko said. “You can look at it as being successful, when you compare this year to last year. The same thing can be said by Cass defeating Dalton and Northwest Whitfield for the very first time in the school’s history. Then again, you can look at our season another way by what happened to us during our last four games and the fact that we were winless in our region this year, and that we didn’t make the playoffs.”

Not making the playoffs was hard to imagine following the Colonels’ impressive 4-1 start. But then came four straight losses to 7A-AAAA foes Pickens, Gilmer, River Ridge and Cedartown, and a last-place finish in the region.

In their season finale, the Colonels (0-4, 4-5) will play a LaFayette (1-4, 1-8) team who began the season with five straight losses before defeating Heritage-Catoosa. The Ramblers have not won since. Cass has not played since the last Friday in October when it totaled more than 400 yards on offense in its 49-35 loss to Cedartown. The Colonels trailed 21-14 at halftime.

The bye week has given Casko and his players time to rest after playing nine straight games without a break, and to ponder what could have been and what is still left to be accomplished.

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