Local prep teams tuning up for upcoming football season
Former Catholic coach Aubrey Blackwell brought his new team, Benjamin Russell, to the Trinity 7-on-7 camp earlier this summer. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
It’s still early July, but the 2021 football season is rapidly approaching.
So when Trinity hosted Benjamin Russell, Chilton County, Charles Henderson, Elmore County and Stanhope Elmore for a seven-on-seven tournament on Thursday morning at Ragsdale-Boykin Field, the coaches were looking for more than just wins and losses.
That’s not to minimize wins and losses. Class 3A Trinity went 6-0, defeating 5A Charles Henderson in the semifinals and 6A Stanhope Elmore in the finals to win their own tournament.
“It was so gratifying to watch our young men, who have worked hard this summer, come and compete against some really good talent that some people think that we shouldn’t be able to compete against,” Trinity coach Granger Shook said. “And we were able to compete with those guys, so it was gratifying to be able to play with that mentality, to play with a chip on your shoulder and to play with some grit.
“Stanhope Elmore had a lot of size and speed and our boys were able to chip away at it and come out on top.”
Stanhope Elmore coach Brian Bradford didn’t seem disappointed with the runner-up finish. The Mustangs have been leaning on people with physical offensive and defensive fronts for years and without linemen in a seven-on-seven tournament, the finesse part of the team held up well in Thursday’s competition.
“We wanted to come out and compete,” Bradford said. “Seven-on-seven is not exactly what we do, it’s not our style of football, but we ended up going 5-2 and losing to Trinity by one or two points both games.”
Charles Henderson and Benjamin Russell, both featuring new coaching staffs, couldn’t have been too disappointed in their semifinal finishes as both head coaches are working on creating a new culture of winning.
“We’re on the path I want us to be right now,” said former Catholic coach Aubrey Blackwell, now at Benjamin Russell. “We’re trying to learn how to compete, we’re dealing with adversity, we’re learning how to overcome some stuff. We’re really young. We have several kids in this program that didn’t play football last year. We’re trying to get them back in the mode of competing at a football level and the focus that it takes to win in football.
“Our leadership is growing. I saw some of that today, which I’m excited to see. Our kids are starting to learn how to compete. We did some really good things today, we did some things that we can learn from.”
The Wildcats kept pace with talented quarterback Gabe Benton, who alternated between receiver Malcolm Simmons and checking down to tailback Demarcus McNeal, but the defense had trouble shutting down Stanhope Elmore in the semifinals.
“With the exception of our weakside corner and our mike likebacker, nobody else has played defense on Friday night,” Blackwell said, “so this is invaluable for them because right now the game is really fast for them. The more game experience I can get them, the more the game slows down.”
Bradford praised his quarterback, Jacob Bryant, along with receivers Jackson Thomas, D.J. McGhee and Kevin Landrum.
“He had a very, very good day,” Bradford said of Bryant. “We played three quarterbacks today but he had a really good day. We’ve got a young team when it comes to the passing game so we wanted to get better. We’ve got some young receivers that really stepped up and had a big game today.
“And the defense played well. We had a lot of guys step up over there.”
Defensively, he praised Jashawn Mays, Pat Williams, Quintrell Dozier and Jacoby Smith, who moved from safety to corner for the tournament.
Trinity, meanwhile, was missing a few of its big guns, but that just allowed quarterback Walker McClinton and receiver Dawson Criswell more time to shine. Senior Coleman Stanley started the tournament at quarterback, but McClinton, the sophomore, split time and was the quarterback on the field as the Wildcats advanced with wins in the semifinals and finals.
“Both of them played really well today,” Shook said. “Stanley got a hot hand late but we were still dividing up the reps and Walker took advantage of it against some really good speed on defense.”
As the teams move rapidly to the start of organized preseason practice in three weeks, Shook likes the product the tournament’s smallest program put on the field Thursday against some of the area’s best 5A and 6A programs.
“I’m trying to adjust the mindset a little bit,” he said. “I want our boys to expect to win. Every time they walk on the field, that expectation has got to be there, so that’s what I challenged them with. We had the mindset that I’m going to be more disciplined, I’m going to be more physical than you and I thought our boys executed pretty well today.”