WCHS tastes first preseason action
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Grundy County’s Yellow Jackets came calling to the WCHS practice field, for an all-morning scrimmage featuring different group matchups, as well as full-team, 11-on-11 action.
“We did everything but kickoff, and that’s a good opportunity to see things you need to fix, things you need to work on,” said head coach Chris Madewell. “Game situations — like running them on and off the field for an extra point — is something you don’t get the chance to do before the game if you don’t have a scrimmage situation like this.”
Competition began at 9 a.m. on Friday, with linemen going head-to-head on one end of the field while backs and receivers had seven-on-seven scrimmages.
After both teams worked on their special teams’ play, practicing punting, punt defense and point-after plays, the Pioneers and Yellow Jackets got into the thick of things with a fierce set of possessions in “goal-line” situations.
Jevon Ramsey scored a pair of TDs during the Pioneers’ first group of goal-line possessions, and Heath Crisp added a TD catch while Davey Britton was 2-for-3 on extra points.
After their defense held Grundy County to one touchdown and a field goal on its first possession, the Pioneer offense took back over, with Evan Moran and Josh Paz scoring on TD runs.
“There were a lot of bright spots,” Madewell said. “Sometimes as a coach you want to see perfection, and you forget about those bright spots. But looking back, we did a lot of good things, even defensively.
“When we were down in ‘goal-line’ they did really well, but just when they spread us out with that option, with a quarterback as good as they have, if you don’t work on that a lot you’re going to be in trouble.”
That quarterback, Dustin Fults, was a one-man wrecking crew for the Jackets, rushing for all three of Grundy County’s touchdowns once the two squads switched to full 11-on-11 play.
When the Pioneers had the ball, they found the end zone on two of their three possessions, beginning when Moran went in from the 1-yard line. His touchdown dive was set up by a long pass play from backup QB Nick Cantrell to Crisp, who ripped the ball out of a defender’s hand to make the reception.
A fumble from the Pioneers’ Josh Paz ended their second possession, but two powerful runs from Moran, a sweep to Ramsey and a long carry up the gut from Mikey Perkins set the stage for the Pioneers’ final score, a 28-yard pass from Cantrell to Crisp on a fade route.
“Offensively, we drove the ball when we wanted to, and when we executed our blocks up front,” Madewell said. “I felt real comfortable with our offense, we’ve just got to fix a lot of little things.
“Defensively, the option really killed us. That’s something we haven’t worked a lot on in practice; we’ve been working on execution, alignment and haven’t had a lot of time to work against specifics like that. One week in pads, it’s going to be expected there are going to be mistakes. But all of them can be fixed, and they are going to be fixed. There’s no doubt about that.”
This week, the Pioneers will begin their afternoon practice schedule, with scrimmages at Siegel Tuesday at 5:30, and at Sequatchie Thursday at 6 p.m.
The 2004 season begins Aug. 20 at Livingston Academy.