Franklinton’s Demons football team completed their summer 7-on-7s on Wednesday and were defeated by St. Paul’s School eight touchdowns to five at home.
Franklinton scored on its first possession when Jasper LaSalle connected with Shayland Allen on about a 10-yard scoring pass.
St. Paul’s scored the next four touchdowns, but Franklinton trimmed the deficit to 4-2 when LaSalle found Damien Ard for a tally.
St. Paul’s added three more touchdowns to make it 7-2.
Following St. Paul’s touchdown, Franklinton turned the ball over on downs. On the Demons’ next defensive series, Franklinton forced a sack and a Quaran Warren had a pass defensed, with both leading to a turnover on downs.
Then, LaSalle hit Duke Bell for a touchdown, followed by another St. Paul’s score.
Franklinton capped the contest off with two touchdowns.
LaSalle found Allen and Corinthious Dickerson connected with Caleb Brown for the game’s final touchdown.
“From the execution standpoint, it wasn’t horrible, but the effort could’ve been a little better today,” Franklinton coach Jonathan Barber said. “That’s something I talked to the team about at the end obviously that we have to improve. We always have to be aware of the things that we can control, and our effort and our attitude are two of those things.
“In terms of going into the season, I think we did learn some things. I think it benefitted us a decent amount, but as I told them, you don’t win state championships in 7-on-7s. We learned some things and now we can take the things that we learn and find a way to implement them into how it makes us successful on Friday nights going forward.”
Wednesday’s match up concluded 7-on-7s this summer for Franklinton and Barber talked about how the experience went for the Demons.
“I really think we learned a lot about our team this summer, especially in the secondary,” he said. “I think we learned some things about what we can do coverage-wise, in terms of are we more of a man team or are we more of a zone team. How complicated can we be? On the offensive side, I thought we had some guys really step up that we learned some things from that I think are going to make some good contributions when it goes into the season.
“We had some highs and some lows and the thing we want to focus on is being more consistent, staying at that high level all of the time instead of having these dips in-and-out. I saw some great things, especially early on during the summer.”
Franklinton will host Live Oak in a scrimmage on Aug. 16. The Demons will play in the Washington Parish Jamboree at Pine on Aug. 24 and will open the regular season at home against Covington on Aug. 31.