By Jason Avery
News-Times Staff
Junction City took to the field for their annual Purple & Gold Game on Thursday with plenty of positives and plenty of work ahead for the Dragons.
“We did a lot of good and a lot of bad on different things that we were doing or trying to do, but the best thing about it was the hustle that we showed out there during the thing was really good,” Junction City coach David Carpenter said. “The intensity level was real good. A lot of mistakes were made, but the thing about the mistakes that were made, they can be fixed. When they at least made a mistake, they were going full speed. Those little things help out.”
When asked if there was a group that stood out on Thursday, Carpenter singled out the defensive line.
“I thought all of the guys that we used over on the defensive line did a pretty good job,” Carpenter said. “I’m proud of them.”
Carpenter also liked what we saw from the offense.
“I thought our running backs all hit the holes and ran hard, but the best thing was after contact was made, they kept moving their legs and picked up 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 yards,” Carpenter said. “They did a good job with that. Our quarterbacks and receivers, it’s a lot different than lining up out there and just throwing and no one is coming after you or coming at you.
“There was a couple of times where we scrambled too soon, but all in all, their footwork was good, their throwing was good. They had a couple of good check-down reads that we were impressed that they were able to do that with the quickness that they did. Just trying to get the timing down, we’ve got to keep working at it. All in all, I thought we did pretty good.”
One area where the Dragons made progress was with their depth, particularly on the lines.
“Both of our offensive and defensive lines, we had some guys do some things that really show a lot of promise on where they could eventually wind up,” Carpenter said. “That was a promising thing.”
Carpenter said the Dragons must build off of the Purple & Gold Game as they get ready to host Hamburg next week for their scrimmage.
“Everything that I said was good needs to be improved on all the way across,” Carpenter said. “It’s always tough going against yourself in a scrimmage.
“Everybody knows all of the calls, everybody knows all of the signals, so I’m ready just to see us get somebody else that doesn’t know all of the things that we’re doing so we can see just how they’re reacting. It needs a lot of improvement, but we’ll feel better after we see what we do against someone we never see.”