By T. Scott Boatright
MINDEN — It was a mixed bag of prep results for the Lincoln Preparatory School football team Friday night at the Glenbrook High School jamboree, with the Panthers falling to the host Apaches 21-0 in the first contest before defeating Ringgold 8-0 in the second.
But while the results on the scoreboard might have been mixed, the feelings of Lincoln Prep coach Glen Hall leaned toward the positive as he spoke about both contests.
“The numbers don’t really show how that game went,” Hall said of the opener against Glenbrook. “We made two or three defensive mistakes and they ended up scoring on a couple of long passes. We didn’t move the ball on offense against them.
“But I’m really not disappointed with how we looked against (Glenbrook) because we did a couple of good things on offense — we ran the ball well a couple of times. We just weren’t consistent and they took advantage of it. They’re a more seasoned team than we are right now, and it showed. But we learned a lot facing them, and that’s a good thing that will hopefully help us down the road.”
The 12 minutes Lincoln Prep played against Ringgold in game two was all about offense ball control by the Panthers.
“Against Ringgold we were able to move the ball down the field,” Hall said. “(Junior running back Jaylin) Huntley ran the ball really well against them. He ran the ball five times for 80 yards in that game. He ran through some tackles and broke some long runs.”
But Huntley wasn’t the only Panther that had rushing success against the Indians — Lamarion Burton also made the most of his opportunities carrying the ball.
“Then we put Burton in there and he ran the ball well,” Hall said. “He’s the one that ended up running the ball in for the touchdown
“We also did some inside runs, some traps, with our fullback, (D’Tavion) Wright. He ran three times for 12 yards.”
The Panthers stuck with Jordan Brown at quarterback for both games after No. 2 signal caller Michael Lewis missed practice on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with a sore back.
“Brown threw the two-point conversion to Trey Spann against Ringgold and did a good job of completing three other passes on sprintouts,” Hall said. “He ran the ball well a couple of times against Ringgold.
“But the most important thing he did in that one is that he managed the game the way I wanted him to. That’s something we’re going to need him to do and he kept getting better the longer he was in there tonight, and that’s all we can ask for in a jamboree.”
Other than the costly miscues that gave up big plays to Glenbrook, Hall said he was pleased with the Panthers’ defensive play on the night.
“A lot of the time they didn’t do bad against Glenbrook except for those big plays,” Hall said. “We learned our secondary needs some more work. Glenbrook really couldn’t run the ball against us. They completed and scored on some big passes but they couldn’t really run the ball against us.
“Our linebackers did a good job of flying around and making plays and then our defensive line did pretty well, too. So I feel good about that part of our defense. But we have to work on our pass coverage. That was the biggest thing we learned about this team tonight. We can’t give up big plays the way we did tonight against Glenbrook.”
Overall, Hall said he got what he wanted out of the jamboree heading into next Friday’s season opener at home against Madison High School.
“That one isn’t going to be easy,” Hall said. “They scrimmaged against Bastrop and gave Bastrop everything they could handle. We learned tonight there are some things we need to work on. And we need to do it by next week because Madison has some really good athletes.
“So we’re going to take what we learned from the jamboree, work on everything, but work extra hard on the things we saw tonight that we now know we need to work on, and then see what happens next week against Madison.”
