Midway scrimmaged with neighbors Hobbton, Lakewood, Clinton and Union on Friday night in the Sampson Jamboree at Clinton.
“Overall, I was pretty pleased,” said first-year Raiders coach Cory Barnes. ” … It was pretty good for our first outing against someone other than ourselves. … I wasn’t pleased with how we finished because we were kind of gassed at the end. I think the format had something to do with it. We’ve got to get back to conditioning this week because it’s going to be hot this week.”
Midway starts the season at Union on Friday night.
“We’ve got to make sure they can last a full game,” Barnes said. “Each session was 10 minutes long (jamboree), just offense or just defense. You’re trying to get your No. 1s as many reps as possible or what you perceive as No. 1s. Then you try to get everybody on tape to see what they can do. They can get pretty worn out playing 10 straight minutes. We watched film this weekend. They are a lot of things we can work on.”
Jam Rich had rushing touchdowns for the Raiders against Union. Deantae Byrd had scores against Lakewood. Carson Calcutt threw for multiple TDs. Cal Tyndall had a touchdown pass. Dante Blue had a score.
Rich had a pair of interceptions. Cameron Calcutt also had a pick.
“We had multiple tackles for loss,” Barnes said.
The scrimmage provided a live scouting report on the Spartans.
“We’ve got to play good defense, like we did Friday night,” Barnes said. “We need to play fast and pursue the football and make tackles when we need to in open space. Offensively, we need to protect our quarterback and get our run game going. I think we’ll be OK.
“Not everybody shows all their cards in scrimmages, especially when you play each other so I’m sure they’ve got some blitz packages and different looks on defense and offensively that we didn’t see. We’re going to have to adjust to that.
“That jamboree is a different animal. You’re playing all the teams you play during the season. That was something new to me. … There’s going to be a feeling out process. You won’t know until you get into the game. You’ll have to start adjusting to what they’re throwing at you, offensively and defensively.”
