CAMDEN — The heat didn't appear to hinder the Hornets during a spring scrimmage at Bill Manning Field. Originally scheduled for later this week, the game was played on Monday due to the threat of rain. The Hornets were split into equally-talented squads as one squad donned white practice jerseys, and the other wore black. The controlled scrimmage lasted for about an hour and a half before playing a series of projected offensive starters against the defense.
The white team controlled the game early behind explosive scrambling from quarterback Nathan Whitley and solid running from Jordan Hicks. The black team would strike on the last play before the first team offense segment with an 80 yard catch and run by Brett Bearden. The score wasn't kept but each team scored three touchdowns and only one turnover was recorded. After the scrimmage,Head Coach Tony Chambers talked to his team about upcoming 7-on-7 camps and thanked them for their hard work during the offseason. Chambers said he was impressed overall with the competitive game but that he doesn't want his team to get complacent.
"I feel like it went good," Chambers said. "It's one of those things to where you just wanna get out here and compete after five or six months of just lifting weights. I thought it went well. We had some people that shined today but obviously we still got work to do."
Chambers stated that he was concerned about a couple of spots on defense but was happy with the progress at inside linebacker. He was also satisfied with Whitley's performance at quarterback.
"I expected Nathan to play really well," Chambers said. "He's been playing quarterback for quite a few years now and he's getting his chance to really come in and run the team now. I thought Jace (Garcia) and Jared (Garcia) both played really well at linebacker - which we've had our struggles at the inside linebacker position in the past. I thought both of our offensive lines did really well. I think that will be one of our strengths this year. We only loss one person off the offensive line last year. Our big question marks are going to be our defensive line and our linebackers. Hopefully, we answered the question on linebackers today. If we can get our defensive line sewed up we should be pretty tough."