Friday evening, Scotlandville, Amite, and Madison Prep held a three way scrimmage to close out the spring. Despite the warm weather, attendance was great as fans and college scouts alike flooded Scotlandville High to watch young talent compete. Dropped passes, miss tackles, fumbles, and blown coverages where a common theme throughout the day. BUT it’s just spring football, so these things are to be expected. Generally coaches are just looking to evaluate their team while giving players a chance to make an impression. And boy, did they ever.

Out of the three teams, Scotlandville made the most plays and looked the cleanest. They had several players standout, but the sophomore running back tandem of Chance Williams and Marlon Gunn Jr impressed the most. They lived in the end zone, each scoring early redzone in drills and in the live scrimmages. Also senior defensive end Johnathan Horton, a basketball player who just picked up football, flashed several times in run defense and applied consistent pressure on opposing QBs. Here’s what Scotlandville coach Kris Peters had to say about his players performance.

” I mean its a spring game so I took it with a grain of salt. We were missing guys. I think one of the things you can take away from the game is that we have depth at running back. At the offense of line we’re still developing some guys. We missed two starters today ,but I thought we played okay but we have to clean some things up. On offense I have to start with Chance Williams and how he ran the football. I like Jesse Craig’s (QB) command of the offense. Martrell Thomas was a war dad on the offense of line. On defense, Jonathnan Horton is a kid who just came out for football a week ago. He plays basketball, but I think he wrecked some things. Darius William, I thought he played sideline to sideline for us. And then Chris Daigle. I think Chris Daigle was special for us at corner…. you know I call them DBU for a reason. (Goals for the upcoming season) Get better everyday. You know it simple man. There’s no state championship. I mean if do things the right way and you got good players it will come in time.”

It was more of a mixed bag for Amite as they had big plays, but also left some on the field. Quarterbacks David Selders and John Walker made several big plays with their feet. The most consistent player was Corey McKnight who ran hard and routinely required multiply defenders to take him down. Darren Branch had a quieter day statistically, but he showed good covers skills and displayed good energy and aggression. Here’s what coach Amite coach Zephaniah Powell had to say.

“There were some positive things. I mean we’re young all across the board on the offense of line and defensive line while having to replace some guys that we lost last year. We were going against two quality opponents in Madison Prep and Scotlandville and our kids at certain parts of the scrimmages held their own against them, you know we got work right there. For are older guys that are return, Corey McKnight had a good game for us, broke a couple of runs and had a couple of touchdowns for us. We made some key tackles. Darren Branch played excellent on defense for us, he covered some of the better players for Madison Prep. And also Kevin Bickham, he played well from an outside linebacker perspective. We’re breaking in two new quarterbacks and I saw some positive stuff from them so you know we just gotta keep working at that aspect. For our young guys, our two quarterbacks David Selders he did some good things for us as well as John Walker. We got a freshman linebacker Jayve Magee he played a good game for us at outside linebacker and also powerback. Dorian Baptist another receiver played well for us. I was very impressed with some of our young guys.”

Madison Prep fought hard all day. Myles Poullard ran the ball well through the tackles. Madison’s first team defense played well even without touted safety Joel Williams for most of the day. Major Burn’s helped pick up the slack showed great leadership.  The offense line also had a strong day run blocking as they consistently created holes. Here’s what Madison Prep coach Mike Roach had to say about his team.

“We just gotta be consistent, you know that’s what the spring is all about. Getting out seeing who can do what and just evaluate them and put them in those game like situations and see how the respond. We responded in spurts but you know we just gotta be more consistent. Major always does. Major’s just a leader and does the little things. We did a good job running the football. Myles Poullard ran the ball well at times. Benjamin
Stewart ran the ball well at times. But you know just gotta better. Our quarterbacks gotta make better reads and certain he just has to check out bad plays. At time that brought more than we can block, but we stayed in the run play and that’s not what we want to do. You gotta make those adjustment,but will be okay. In the summer time we gotta get stronger upfront. That last drive was just an attitude drive. We played well and fought hard we played them all four downs they just pushed it in though. That’s just one of those things where you gotta bigger and stronger.

With spring officially over for these programs, they can fully focus and prepare for the upcoming season. Each team has things to work on, but all have the potential to be solid teams for the upcoming season. It will interesting to see how everything unfolds from here.