South Side, TCA to get work in after jamboree

The football teams at Trinity Christian and South Side had 20 minutes of an unstopped clock to work with in their jamboree at South Side on Friday.

That 20 minutes was enough time for the coaches of both teams – both in their first year – to find plenty to work on in the coming week as they prepare for their respective opening games of the season.

But South Side was the winner on the scoreboard with a 14-7 victory.

The Hawks got on the board on the first play from scrimmage with a long run for a score as Chuck Stokes ran 70 yards to the goal line.

TCA came back in its next possession and marched down the field to tie the game at 7-7.

The game stayed tied until the final few minutes when South Side picked up an interception by Jamarrion Grimes and had a short field to record a touchdown for the lead when Rakarius Lacy ran 37 yards for that score.

This gave TCA the opportunity to work on its two-minute offense, and the Lions were able to move it down the field but ran out of time.

“I thought we did some good things out there and were moving the ball at the end, but we just ran out of time,” said TCA coach Darren Bowling. “We had a couple catches on that last drive where we caught it and got out of bounds, which is what you want to do in that situation in a game.

“But when the clock’s not stopping, getting out of bounds doesn’t matter. But that’s OK because we saw enough to teach on this week.”

TCA opens next week with a home game against Chester County. Bowling said taking care of one of the basics of defense will be a point of emphasis this week in practice.

“I thought we did a good job overall, but tackling is something we need to clean up,” Bowling said. “We were there on most plays to make the tackle, but too many times we didn’t wrap up or just make the tackle, so we’ll try to get that corrected this week.”

For South Side coach Lester Narcisse, he said he’s proud of the effort his team brought to the field for its preseason win. But like Bowling said with his team, there are plenty of mistakes to correct in the next week before the Hawks host Ripley to open the season.

“We had a lot of things that were not correct that may not be visible from the stands,” Narcisse said. “But I can’t say anything about the effort they brought tonight.

“The energy they had coming out and throughout the game is what we need next week as we try to go 1-0. And then hopefully it will be there again the next week as we try to go 1-0 that week.”

Narcisse also said he hopes to see some of the younger Hawks step up their game to build some depth for the team.

“We need depth, and we need some of the younger guys to show that they can step in and fill gaps when we need them to,” Narcisse said.

South Side individual stats courtesy of Hawk Nation: South Side Athletics Facebook page.

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news