East Ridge has speed ... Central is the oldest public school program in the county ... Sale Creek is the youngest ... Grace Academy looks to run ... numbers are up at Whitwell and Brainerd ... Heritage is young with depth ... Lookout Valley's strength is up front
Those are some of the story lines from Thursday night's football 7-on-7 at Grace Academy as team's continue to prepare for the first full day in pads - Mon. July 29.
Brainerd: "It's a new day at Brainerd" under first year coach and former UTC player Brian Gwyn ... "we focus on disciple and our numbers are up from a year ago." ....a few players will be at college prospect camps today (at Tennessee) and Saturday (at Auburn) ... tight end Tevin Walker has good hands while Latony Word and Kaylen Stewarf are good returners ... twins are sophomore wide receivers Jarvis and Kenneth Sawyer.
Chattanooga Central: Coach John Allen's Pounders' have "some speed" and "some athletes" ... Scout Morgan and Terry Tiller will batte for the starting QB spot in the no huddle system ,,, Tiller is also a wide receiver.
East Ridge: Coach Tracy Malone is pleased with his speed ... Thursday, QB Jo Jo Tillery and receiver Kolbe King displayed some of that speed on long pass plays ... King starts in football, basketball and soccer.
Grace Academy: Coach Bob Ateca says the running game is strong (Will Slack, DeQuan Hughes) and play action will feed off the ground attack. "we threw the ball decent tonight and made a few stops on defense." ... Isaace Spencer has waited four years to be the starter and now that Josh Smith has graduated, the QB spot is all Spencer's ... "defensively, we are learning to keep the ball in front of us ... no big plays."
Heritage (Ga.) ... Coach Tim James leads the Generals in their sixth season ... Dylan Bice is the QB and throws to Christian King ... team strength is the D-LIne... Bice's dad, Billy Bice, played defensive end/linebacker for Chattanooga Central when current Heritage offensive line coach, John Crawford, was an assistant for the Pounders.
Lookout Valley: Tenth year coach Tony Webb has a solid O-line and D-line with ninth grader Evan Walker (QB) and Jaylen Wynn (RB) leading the offense ... "If we can stay healthy we should do okay," said Webb.
Sale Creek ... first year program will play four home games at Finley Stadium ... "we saw a lot of speed tonight from Brainerd and East Ridge ... and I thought we held our own most of our 7-on-7s," said head coach Ron Cox ... Cody Heard is the QB and defensive back ... we played well against Chattanooga Christian on Tuesday in a long scrimmage and our kids were pretty tired tonight, but we had some good matchups."
Whitwell: The Tigers looked good with some long touchdown passes ... offense is led by a pair of underclassmen in quarterback Tyler Tate (Jr.) and talented receiver Tyler Tate (So.) ...lindebacker Jack Sartin will lead the defense.
Best Uniforms: Sale Creek's new uniforms are made by HTS Athletics in Sweetwater .... "all our products are made in the United States," said owner Dennis Holt "We are pleased to be able to outfit the team with practice shorts and jersey's as well as game jersey's and pants."
HTS also makes jerseys for Sweetwater HS and McMinn Co.
"Be Relentless" Fellowship of Christian Athletes Chattanooga area director and Tyner HS and West Point grad Jay Fowler gave a short talk to the players about being relentless on the football field as well as in life ... making the right choices in life and being the best you can be.
Fowler's key question to the group was "what are you relentlessly pursuing?"
He stated a relationship with Jesus Christ is worth pursuing.
contact B.B. Branton at wiliam.branton@comcast.net