[06/27/02]After his team advanced to the North State championship game and college coaches crawled all over his practice field last fall, Vicksburg High coach Alonzo Stevens was expecting the Gators to get loads of postseason accolades.

They never came.

Many players that he felt deserving were passed over for the Mississippi/Alabama All-Star game and the Bernard Blackwell Classic. Despite having one of the most potent offenses in the state, few statewide awards came their way.

The Gators know how good they were, however, and now a group of them are heading to the Lone Star State to prove it.

Tight end Walter Warfield, offensive lineman Charles Wilson, running back J.J. Brown and linebacker Decorey Knight will participate in the National All-Stars Bowl Saturday in Arlington, Texas.

The game, played on the campus of the University of Texas-Arlington, is a high school all-star game for players from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas.

“I think we’ve got something to prove. We should be a couple of steps ahead of everybody because we’ve been working out,” Warfield said.”We were the North State runnerup and we still didn’t get anything. I think some people on our team should have made the Mississippi-Alabama game.”

Most of the players from the game will be from Texas, with a few from Louisiana and Arkansas. The group from VHS will be the only players from Mississippi in the contest.

The four players have all signed with Hinds Community College and Brown is in ongoing negotiations with the Kansas City Royals, who selected him in the Major League Baseball draft so their focus this weekend is on having fun and representing VHS one last time.

“This is our last time wearing the green and white,” Warfield said. “We just want to represent Vicksburg by doing good.”

Playing together will make the game more fun and, hopefully, improve their performance, the players said. Knight, however, joked that he would be lonely without any teammates on his side of the ball.

VHS linebacker Tim Brown, who will play in the Bernard Blackwell Classic with teammates David Heard and Andre Bennett in July, was selected for Saturday’s game but decided not to play.

“I don’t have anybody on the other side of the ball with me. I feel alone without Tim,” Knight said with a chuckle.

The group will also have to deal with another new experience playing on artificial turf.

The speedy Gators were licking their chops at the thought of playing on the faster surface, but Stevens had some concerns.

Not about injuries, but about his Gators frying on the turf in the hot Texas sun. The game will start at 4 p.m.

“That’s going to be something new for us. It’s going to make them faster,” Stevens said, adding with a laugh, “It’s going to make them burn up, too.”