Varnado competes in spring game

Published 12:43 am Saturday, May 19, 2018

Varnado faced Independence in the teams’ spring game on Wednesday, May 9 at Independence.
The event featured a controlled portion and a timed portion.
The team opened the scrimmage with the controlled portion, with each team running two sets of 12 plays offensively and defensively.
Defensively, the Wildcats allowed one score on a long pass play.
Varnado coach Scott Shaffett felt his team looked good defensively.
“We’ve got to get better in our pass coverage, which we’ll be able to do this summer with 7-on-7s,” Shaffett said.
Shaffett said that Varnado reached the red zone twice, but two penalties on one opportunity and an interception on another prevented the Wildcats from scoring.
“We’re young,” Shaffett said. “We’ve got a lot of new guys in. I was glad to see we moved the ball. We’ve just got to fix those mistakes and we will.
“I expect any time you have a lot of new faces, especially in the skill positions, you’re going to make those types of mistakes. The positive is that we moved the ball really well against a good athletic Independence team.”
Offensively, Shaffett said the Wildcats moved the ball really well, but just did not finish drives.
“That’ll come in time,” Shaffett said. “We’ve got to mature. This summer, we’ve got time to work on things. In the spring, you don’t get a lot of time. I saw positive things on both sides of the ball.”
The timed 12-minute quarter finished in a 6-6 tie.
Varnado’s touchdown came on a Zantonio Peters quarterback run from 12 yards out.
Varnado begins summer workouts on June 7 and will be having an intrasquad 7-on-7 that day.
“I’m extremely excited about these guys,” he said. “We may start off a little slow just because we are young, but come playoff time, we’ll be a force to deal with.”