Published: August 15, 2009 04:59 pm      

Bobcats, Pirates have productive scrimmage

ORANGEFIELD — Getting to hit someone in a different uniform for the first time, long-time Vidor head coach Jeff Mathews and first-year Orangefield coach Brian Huckabay liked what they saw in their teams after they scrimmaged one another Saturday morning at Orangefield High School.

In the controlled portion, both teams went at each other hard. Both squads moved the ball well at times. However, there were several turnovers and a slew of flags, which is somewhat expected this time of the year.

The two Orange County teams then played a live game situation for 20 minutes with the more experienced Pirates winning that 26-0.

Vidor got three long rushing touchdowns from Kevin Tate, Shane Pitman and Jake Travis.

“I’m real pleased with our kids and their effort,” said Mathews, whose Pirates will be pushing hard for a playoff berth out of District 20-4A. “It’s good to line up against someone else for the first time. Coach Huckabay and his kids really challenged us hard. We knew coming in that we had the experience but the Bobcats got after us hard and we really needed that.”

Coach Huckabay, who replaces Blake Morrison, was hired in the early part of the summer and the Bobcats, of course, are still adjusting to a new system.

“All in all, I loved the effort of the kids,” said Huckabay. “The kids are learning a lot in a short amount of time. I thought we played really well in the controlled part with the coaches on the field and all. The game situation was a bit different and that’s all about the learning process. Defensively, we didn’t wrap up well but that’s going to get better.”

Scrimmages certainly give coaching staffs and idea on where they need to improve.

“We played hard, but it is those little mistakes that will kill you,” said Mathews. “We had a lot of penalties and we put the ball on the ground a few times. We also need a lot more work in our kicking game. We’ve got a couple more weeks to straighten things like that out.”

Conditioning will be a key for the Bobcats.

“I thought we got tired there at the end,” said Huckabay. “Our conditioning needs to improve some more. We needed to face someone like Vidor. Coach Mathews’ team has a lot of experience and depth and are really physical. That’s was a good team to line up against for a first scrimmage.”

Vidor will host West Orange-Stark in a scrimmage next week on either Thursday or Friday.

In other scrimmages Saturday, WO-S hosted Dayton; Little Cypress-Mauriceville took on Texas City; Bridge City took on Lumberton and Deweyville faced Kirbyville.