EDWARDSVILLE – Edwardsville's football team started the final countdown to the 2016 season with an intersquad scrimmage at Tiger Stadium Friday night as the Tigers began their preparations for next Friday's season opener at Quincy.
The Tiger varsity, as well as the freshman and sophomore teams and the Little Tiger football program, held scrimmages before an enthusiastic crowd ready for the start of the season.
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Tiger coach Matt Martin was happy with how things went. “Nobody got hurt, as far as I know,” Martin said. “There wasn't a lot of errors, as far as penalties, the hustle was pretty good.
“We've got to get ready for Quincy; I think all the teams are at the point where you need somebody focus on, other than yourselves. You're only going to make so much progression now; it's time to get into Week 1.”
When asked what the Tigers need to work on, Martin said “general execution; better snaps, better assignment execution, ball security – just the basics. This team has a chance to be very good; time will tell.”
“I thought it went really well tonight” for the Tiger freshmen, EHS freshman coach Ryan Followell said. “We have a large crowd – 52 kids on the team, the largest team we've had in the seven years I've been (freshman) head coach. I'm really excited, we got a lot of kids in, we had a lot of fun on the turf and we put on a good display of football.
'I'm excited to see the progression through the season and see what they do as sophomores and so on. We run everything the varsity does so we're the feeder program like we are (for the varsity program). I thought my quarterback did really well (Luke Oglesby), I thought my running backs (Malachi Reavis, Eric Epenesa, Ethan Young, Javon Kinney and Josh Klein) and my o-line did a great job.”
“For being under the lights, I thought we were a little nervous,” said Tiger sophomore coach Craig Colbert. “We weren't a sharp as I would want us to be, but I think that had (something) to do with the lights and bigger crowd. Overall, I was pleased with how we are; we ran the ball hard. I think we did OK.
“We've got some good numbers; we've got 37 sophomores out. You're always optimistic about the season and you never quite know how good you'll be until you get out for that first game; we've got some players and athletes on both offense and defense. Our job is to get these guys ready for varsity competition.”
The Tiger freshmen will start their season at home at 10 a.m. Aug. 27 when they host CBC's Cadets of St. Louis County, while the sophomores will play at Quincy at 5 p.m. Friday as a curtain-raiser for the Tigers' varsity opener, then host Rock Island at 5 p.m. Sept. 2 in a curtain-raiser for the Tigers' home opener against the Rocks.
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
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