El Dorado to finish spring practice with scrimmage
El Dorado will wrap up the spring football season Tuesday with a scrimmage at Memorial Stadium. The scrimmage kicks off at 6 p.m. and will be the 10th spring practice for the Wildcats.
“You can tell we’re getting better,” said El Dorado coach Chris Hill. “We’ve got some (positions) we feel really good at and we’ve got some question marks we’ll have to get filled in. Hopefully we’ll have those filled in by the time or we better have them filled in by the time North Little Rock comes to town.”
El Dorado went 5-6 in Hill’s first year at the helm last season and qualified for the 6A state playoffs. The coach had some areas he prioritized in the off-season.
“Just being physical. I think we’re stronger than we were last year. We’re trying to get the strength to transfer from the weightroom to the field. I tell the kids, if it doesn’t transfer, it’s useless to us. Trying to get a little more aggressive mind-set, more physical up front than what we were,” he said.
“You have to prioritize some things. You can’t put everything in at one time. We have some stuff we’ve been working on that we’ll continue to work on this spring. Hopefully, it’ll help us in the fall.”
Hill said the scrimmage will be free to the public and could last approximately an hour. The goal is to get every player on the field and on film.
“We won’t keep score. I’m sure the kids will. It’s just another practice for us. We want to let the parents come watch their kids play a little bit, a really, really early preseason peek at what we look like,” said Hill.
“I’ll have a quick whistle on some of them. Of course the quarterback is off limits. We’ll tackle to the ground for the most part.”
The Wildcats welcomed 30 incoming sophomores to the varsity roster. Hill expects them to have an impact.
“It’s a smaller group. But the ones we’ve got have bought into what we’re doing,” he said. “They want to play and they’re taking care of business in the classroom and in the weightroom and on the field. There’s some talented players in there.”
They will join a group of returning players who were thrown into the fire a season ago and gained experience.
“Our seniors have been there every day. They haven’t missed. They’ve done a pretty good job of leading the football team. We had one guy miss practice because he had to go get cleared from the doctor. You can’t really hold that against him. We’re basically at a hundred percent,” said Hill.
“Juniors have done a good job. Sophomores are growing. We’ve seen good things from those guys. They’re doing a good job of working hard and there are going to be some sophomores who are going to be on the field on Friday nights next season.”