It took a while, but the Spalding High Jaguars football team did impress their head coach Nick Davis after their 22-7 preseason scrimmage win over the Pike County Pirates on the road Friday night.

“I was excited about our young running back Jabril Reid, who ran well all night, and the other young guys Monquez Sullivan and Brandon Thomas also ran well,” Davis said. “On offense, I was also glad to see we didn’t turn the ball over, except for the one fumble which we picked up and ran for a touchdown.”

Davis said while the defense got off to a slow start, he was proud of them as well.

“The defense was gashed early, but they got it together later. I was impressed with how they ran to the ball all night,” he said. “We also got at least 3 sacks and we nabbed two interceptions.”

Davis did have one major beef with his team.

“I was very disappointed with our penalties and our offensive miscues,” said Davis. “We definitely have to clean that up. If we don’t commit so many penalties last night, the game’s not even close.”

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GCHS SCRIMMAGES ARLINGTON:

The Griffin Christian Crusaders football team had an informal scrimmage against the Arlington Christian Eagles Friday evening at Nix Field and the Crusaders coaching staff was pleased with the team’s effort.

Arlington scored 3 touchdowns to none for GCHS.

“But two of their TDs came as a result of our fumbles,” said Crusaders head coach Bobby Brogdon.”Our young bucks did real good out there. They played hard and didn’t get beat up too bad. We’ve just got to work on blocking and tackling drills. I was real proud of the guys — they stayed in there, kept their heads up and played ball as well as they could.”

Brogdon was pleased with quarterback Dillan Brogdon, fullback Sam Galloway and wideout/running back Michael White.

The Crusaders host Heritage in a preseason scrimmage next Friday, Aug. 19 at 7:30 p.m.

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SKIPSTONE COMPETES IN JAMBOREE:

McDONOUGH, Ga. — The Skipstone Academy Warriors football team played in a jamboree Friday night at Peoples Baptist and went 1-1-1 overall, beating Philadelphia Christian 30-0, tying the host team People’s Baptist 0-0 and losing to 2010 eight-man football champions King’s Way 14-0.

The Warriors played hard against King’s Way, but had a costly fumble that allowed them to go up two scores.

Scoring TDs for Skipstone were Charence White, Jameira Winston, Christian Salvador and Donald Smith.

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RUNNING MEN:

Davis also saw that the Jags were fresher than the Pirates Friday night, noting how tired Pike was during the middle of the game.

“I think the guys now realize the benefits of all the conditioning work we did over the summer,” he said. “We did a lot of running and we were fresh for the whole game.”

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A GOOD START:

Griffin High junior safety/running back Richard Wilder has gotten off to a good start this year. Earlier this summer, the Bears won the 7-on-7 passing league at Shiloh High and Wilder won Defensive Player of the Tournament honors. During Griffin’s preseason home scrimmage against Newnan High on Friday night at Memorial Stadium, Wilder showed he can carry the load on offense, toting the ball 20 times for 130 yards in the Bears 34-0 loss.

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I HELPED OUT:

Xavier Lyons’ 35-yard TD run and Bernard Houston’s 40-yard fumble recovery TD for Spalding didn’t happen by themselves. A key factor in those runs was blocks by senior offensive lineman Tiquon “Ducie” Watts, who helped spring his senior teammates.

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GETTING THEIR KICKS:

Davis was impressed with the kicking game Friday night, as junior place kicker Tanner Gaff made all his extra points except for one which was blocked. He even made a 32-yard extra point after a penalty on Spalding. Ronnie Owens punted the ball well and had one of the defense’s two interceptions. Jake Jeffcoat kicked the ball off well and got a sack.