Gore gets final preseason tune-up with Muldrow, Hartshorne
The Gore Pirates football team got its one and only preseason tune-up in last Friday night’s three-way scrimmage with Muldrow and Hartshorne at K.G. Horn Stadium.
The Pirates scored once against both teams. Quarterback Tate Brooksher hit Keeton Rowe on a 4-yard touchdown pass against Hartshorne, while Blaydin McCartney scored on a 15-yard TD run against Muldrow.
“I think we did good,” Gore coach Brandon Ellis said. “We saw what we wanted to see. We came out with one offensive formation and ran five plays, and we never diverted off that offensively. Defensively, we did not blitz. We just used one defensive set, and that was it. We were very basic and vanilla. Our effort was there, so we don’t have to fix that — that’s the hardest thing to fix.”
The Bulldogs scored once on the night, a 40-yard touchdown run by quarterback Teaguen Collins.
“I thought we went out there and executed pretty well,” Muldrow coach Logan Coatney said. “We were able to get a lot of reps for our younger guys. Our guys who are JV and second string, the kids got a ton of reps. We limited what we did with our firststring guys. I’m very proud of where we’re at, what our kids knew and and the way we executed. We felt good at what we accomplished while we were there.”
The ’Dogs will get one more preseason tune-up at 6:30 p.m. Thursday against Panama at Panama’s George Ollie Stadium. Coatney said there are some things Friday night’s scrimmage showed that his team needs to work on this week.
“We still have some stuff we need to clean up on,” Coatney said. “One is we have to catch the ball when it hits us in the hands. We had some drop balls that hit us in the hands that our guys have to catch. Then, there’s just the little things — taking the correct step with our offense line, so our guys don’t take the wrong step and having the defensive lineman getting a step on them. We need to clean up our fundamentals up front. We need to hone in on the everyday drills that we need to be able to execute — and hone in on how we need to be able to run the football.”
On the other hand, there is no second preseason tune-up for the Pirates, who will open the season at 7 p.m. Friday at Wilburton in a Zero Week game, so the Pirates will have to use this week’s practices to iron out the kinks.
“If we did everything perfect, I’d be worried,” Ellis said. “Defensively, we have to work on some reads and wrapping up (tackling). Offensively, the (running) backs need to hit certain holes. We have to get our people on the correct block. It’s stuff that is very fixable.”
