By Trey Hunter
Sports Editor
The Wildcats got their first taste of action this spring against someone other than their own teammates Friday at the Bethany spring team camp.
First-year coach Jeff Hall came away pleased after finally getting a chance to evaluate his team live and lock down film for further examination. He said the recent weather didn’t help leading up to the camp, but he saw plenty of positives.
“I think we were a bit nervous,” he said. “The weather has been horrible. We missed Monday, then Tuesday was graduation, Wednesday we had to go in. So Thursday was the only real practice we got in before heading to the camp.
“I was proud of the kids. They executed some things on both sides of the ball. And any coach wants to come away healthy out of spring camps and we did that, so that was big too.”
Hall was pleased with his team’s defensive effort against Bethany and Douglass during the scrimmages.
“The effort was the most encouraging part. We ran to the football really well so that was never in question. I think the technique is getting better, but we have a lot of work to do. I knew it would suffer a little bit with limited practice and it’s still early giving us plenty of time to get some things fixed.”
The Wildcats are picking up the flex-bone offense well, showing signs of progress Friday.
“We were able to execute some things and not just the starters, so that’s really big,” Hall said. “We are miles ahead of where I thought we would be and where teams I’ve coached have been in the past at this point. Reps are the most important thing right now. The more we get, the better we’ll get.”
Piedmont will take a break until summer pride workouts and then break again before fall camp kicks off the 2019 season.
“High school kids take part in a lot of activities so staying in shape isn’t a big worry,” Hall said of what he wants his team to do during the off season. “At times you put so much on kids and they don’t have time to just go be kids. So when we have time off I want them to go have fun and enjoy this stage of their lives.”
The next step for the Wildcats is Summer Pride which begins Monday and runs through Aug. 1 before a break prior to fall practice.
