Thursday sports: Trojans’ Temko to play football at Mississippi College
Photo: Northpoint senior linebacker Andrew Temko signs to play at Mississippi College next fall on Thursday, March 7. (Bob Bakken/desotocountynews.com)
When Northpoint Christian School football coach Tyler Gold talks about senior linebacker Andrew Temko, two things about him come to mind. One is competitiveness and the other is attention to detail.
“Andrew is a competitor in whatever he’s doing,” Gold said Thursday as Temko signed to play college football next season at Mississippi College. “It’s gonna be in the classroom, it could be in his approach with his friends, it could be on the field, or it could be in the weight room. You don’t see it very often anymore, but he’s just a teenager that is willing to and wanting to compete and everything he does is pretty impressive.”
Temko played two seasons at linebacker for a Trojans football team that made the TSSAA Division II-AA playoffs in both seasons. He came to Northpoint as a sophomore from Collierville, but transfer rules prevented him from playing on the varsity squad that year. Temko would play junior varsity as a sophomore and also was involved in getting the varsity Trojans ready to play.
“We would challenge him, hey, this week, we’re going to face a really good linebacker from Lausanne and you’re that guy, so beat us,” Gold said. “He would beat us and we would make sure that he was engaged. We praised him over it because he did such a great job getting us ready that year for other teams.”
The competition and detail carried into his two seasons and Temko became part of a stalwart defense that averaged just over 12 points last season, taking Northpoint to the second round of the playoffs.
“His film study, his play recognition, and his wanting to be better at the little steps and the little bits of a linebacker which are so, so hard to do,” Gold said. “He will constantly be working on those things until the day he’s done playing football because that’s who he is. He wants to be a little bit better each day.”
Temko said he’s looking forward to bringing his competitive nature to a Choctaws’ program led by a new head coach Mike Kershaw and defensive coordinator Will Paruta.
“It was a Christian school and I really connected with the coaches,” Tenko said. “I really knew that they were going to pick it up this year and that they were going to be competitive this year. I feel like they’re gonna be really good this year.”
DeSoto County scoreboard
Thursday, March 7
Prep baseball
- Center Hill 4, Hernando 2
Prep softball
- Lake Cormorant 8, Strayhorn 0
- Hernando 10, Lafayette (Oxford) 0
- Oxford 16, Horn Lake 0
- DeSoto Central 10, Southaven 0 (5 innings)
- Lewisburg 2, Booneville 0
- South Panola 12, Olive Branch 0
- Independence 9, Center Hill 7
JUCO softball
- Southwest 2, Northwest 1
- Northwest 5, Southwest 0
