Coach disappointed after football team’s scrimmage

By ROB NUNLEY / Sports Editor for the Southern Standard

The Pioneers’ Eli Smith wraps up a teammate during tackling drills earlier this week. WCHS scrimmaged against Siegel on Tuesday. (Rob Nunley photo)

The Pioneer football team turned in a less-than-impressive showing in its second scrimmage of the preseason, according to first-year head coach Chris Madewell.

Traveling to Murfreesboro to face the Siegel Stars, the Pioneers got off to a slow start, resulting in being out-scored by a large margin in the first half of Tuesday’s scrimmage.

“We started real sluggish, especially in the first half,” Madewell said. “We were dead, even in warm-ups, and I had a feeling we weren’t going to come out and play well.”

Giving up four touchdowns and scoring just one in the first half against the Stars, the Pioneers turned things around somewhat in the second half, posting three TDs and holding their hosts to just one.

“We picked it up a little in the second half,” Madewell noted. “Near the end they put their first-stringers back in, and we scored on them then stopped them on defense. So we did some good things late in the scrimmage.

“But overall we didn’t do nearly as well as I would’ve liked, and I really felt we could’ve come out and played with them. They weren’t that much better than we are, but we just didn’t have any enthusiasm or intensity.

“Hopefully we’ll learn something from this, and build on it heading into next week.”

The Pioneers will take today off, and continue preparing next week for their 2004 season opener, which is scheduled for Friday, Aug. 20, at Livingston Academy.