The upswing in the Selma High football program will continue in 2005, Saints coach Woodrow Lowe Jr. said.

After winning just one game last season, the 2004 campaign was a good one for the Selma High School Saints, both on and off the field.

“It’s been a good year,” Lowe said. “A lot of positive things have come out of this season.”

For one, the Saints developed an off-season spring program with the cooperation of Velocity Sports in Montgomery. A dozen Saints attended the weekly program that helped shave as much as four-tenths of a second off their times in the 40-yard dash. A strength program gave the Saints muscle on the field and a new booster club gave them support and encouragement in the game as well as away from it.

“The speed program gave them a chance to get faster,” Lowe said. “The strength program gave them a chance to grow. The kids are definitely getting stronger.”

Lowe said he would work during the off-season to bring back to Selma the speed program to go with the Saints’ strength plan.

“I learned a lot from the program,” Lowe said. “I think we’d be able to have that program here. We need to get some money on campus to buy the equipment.”

Lowe and the Saints will waste little time in preparing for next season. The Saints coach said the team would begin its first in a series of off-season strength programs immediately after Thanksgiving.

Getting stronger has to be near the top of the Saints’ agenda. The team suffered several injuries this season, including several to key players near the end of the regular season.

“We got banged up, and those injuries hurt,” Lowe said. “We just don’t have the depth of other 6A programs. We had a lot of players who normally wouldn’t have played, but I had to play them because of all the injuries. That kind of makes things difficult.”

The lack of depth showed in the Saints’ 55-16 loss to Daphne in the first round of the state playoffs last week, when a more powerful and experienced Daphne squad easily handled the smaller and younger Saints.

The departure of eight seniors would seemingly mean that the Saints would again struggle next season with depth. That, Lowe said, is not the case.

Although the Saints are losing those eight seniors, the senior class will almost triple next year. Lowe said Selma would have as many as 24 seniors in 2005, with up to 61 players returning from 2004.

“We have high expectations for the seniors coming back,” Lowe said. “They’ve just to get better everyday. That includes the off-season.”

The Selma offense would likely benefit most from the increased number of seniors, along with a talented group advancing from the school’s junior varsity squad and from Selma CHAT Academy coming next season.

“We’ll probably have 16 or 17 starters returning next year,” Lowe said. “Just about everyone is coming back on offense. Everyone who is returning played a lot this year.

“We’re definitely going to be better,” Lowe added. “We can’t help but to get better.”