Published: May 24, 2006 12:12 pm            

Cougars work on passing game in spring jamboree

DECATUR — With leading ground gainer Duke Hudnall lost to graduation, Newton County coach Jeff Breland has used this spring to work on his passing game.

The Cougars finished off their spring drills last week against West Jones and Northeast Lauderdale in a jamboree.

“We didn’t keep score but I thought we did well,” Breland said. “We got a lot of people involved. We threw the ball and had some success doing that. We spread it around to several different receivers. We threw it and caught it which was something that we didn’t do a lot of last year.”

Breland said the Cougars went with a one-back set for most of the contest with Matthew Sistrunk and Brian Evans getting most of the carries. At quarterback, Corey Edwards took the snaps behind a new offensive line that featured Fred and Calvin Smith at the tackles while Carl Morgan had a good spring at guard.

On defense, Breland said he was encouraged by their play, despite not have a lot of depth at the linebacker position. Breland said he was especially proud of his secondary play from J.J. Thompson, Trellis Hawkins and and Floyd Graves.

“We’ve got most everybody back on defense but we were kind of thin at linebacker in this scrimmage,” Breland said. “We had three starters that weren’t there for various reasons. But it gave us a chance to get some younger guys some reps and see where they are at.”

There is some concern at linebacker as leading tackler Guy Holden was involved in a car wreck and missed most of the spring. His status is undetermined at this time. Junior to be Eddie Hussey also missed the spring with a ruptured kidney and his status is still uncertain for the fall. The other starter, Darius Walker was playing in the state tennis tournament. And on top of those three, Breland said there were eight players still in baseball.

“I thought we did about as well as we could do this spring,” Breland said. “We established a lot of depth. We just wanted to get out there and see who can play and who can’t. We wanted to keep the interest high and that’s what we did.”

Breland said after school lets out, the Cougars will start their summer weight lifting program on May 22, lifting every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

        

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