MARKS — Delta Academy hosted Tunica Academy in a 7-on-7 football scrimmage Friday morning.
While it was not the normal scoring system, Delta Academy finished with 24 points and Tunica Academy had eight.
Both coaches reflected on their teams’ performances.
Delta Academy
Even though Delta Academy had more points, coach Wesley Harris’ main focus was improving.
“I saw what we were trying to do out of it, just run some routes against somebody else other than ourselves,” Harris said.
“Strengths are we got to condition and let the guys throw the ball around and get used to it. I wouldn’t say there’s any weaknesses doing something like this because you can see the problems you have and work on them. We had a lot of guys playing out of position having fun and letting them play.
“There’s a lot of areas we could improve on, dropped balls, route running. A lot of routes weren’t crisp. They were kind of sloppy. We figured out some coverage and stuff later on.”
Ethan Moore was the quarterback and completed several passes to his brother Gabriel Moore.
Delta Academy had several interceptions. Tunica Academy did not score on offense and Harris credited his defensive coordinator Brandon Sims with having his athletes prepared.
Gabriel Moore had one, Trace Williams had three and Caden Cote had one.
“A lot of contributors,” Harris said. “All you can do is throw the ball, so the opponent knows you’re going to throw it. It’s a lot easier when you can mix in runs.”
Harris said the 7-on-7 helped his team offensively in the passing game and with the coverage on defense. He added he did not realize how good Williams was in coverages.
“We’ll do special teams,” Harris said. “It’s just 7-on-7, there’s no room for it.”
Harris said Delta Academy would work on special teams during two-a-days.
Tunica Academy
In a 7-on-7, Tunica Academy was also not concerned about the score.
“Really what we’re looking for is do we execute well?” said coach Daniel Sousa. “Do we know our system? Are we making the right reads? Are we catching the ball? Really, we’re just looking for the fundamentals of what it is that we want to do. Do we have to improvise too much? Do we make mental mistakes? We’re just looking for fundamentals, execution, do we do the right thing?
“We’re foundational pretty solid. I mean we knew the plays that I called. We knew 90 to 80 percent of the plays that we called. We knew our routes. We knew our assignments. Overall, we played really well.
“There were times we didn’t adjust whether it was on defense or offense. We didn’t quite adjust a certain way. I would just say, obviously, we’re never going to play a perfect game. Everybody’s going to make mistakes, but the closer we get to trying to be perfect, the closer we get to being excellent. That’s all we can ask for.”
Freshman quarterback Win White completed a pass to sophomore receiver Edwin Vilaneuva.
Almonzo Payne had three interceptions. Two came on one possession.
“He hasn’t actually been playing football very long,” Sousa said. “This is his second year playing football, so for what he was able to do, it was absolutely fantastic.”
Jeremiah Clark caught several passes.
Curt Berry was the quarterback and completed a long pass to Tommy McIver.
“I would give a lot of credit to the centers,” Sousa said. “We did not have any bad snaps at all today.”
Collin Scott and Parker Cook were the centers.
Nathan Sullivan played receiver and Mac Sullivan had a couple of pass breakups.
