On Saturday the historic Farrington Field in Fort Worth, Texas added another chapter in its storied past as it played host to the Texas Wesleyan Rams who held their spring scrimmage to welcome football back to its program after 75 years.
For head coach Joe Prud’homme it was a day of fruition and excitement as he saw the initial fan base of the reconvened Texas Wesleyan team come out to support and also see his players have the chance to showcase what has been a highly anticipated day for them.
“It was great! It was great to have a game, it was great to get some referees out here and have a little bit of a crowd buzz. It was a little bit of a dress rehearsal going into next year and getting to have a little bit more of an idea of what to expect. All in all it was pretty good. It felt good to go out and have somewhat of a game.”
The game which consisted of two thirty-minute halves saw the squads separated into Blue (defense) and Gold (offense) teams.
For the Blue team it was a day of relentless pursuit and tone-setting as they unleashed the hounds and gave the Gold team a rough outing to begin the scrimmage. Blue was able to force the familiarity of the special team units upon spectators as the Gold team had a rough start in trying to get the ball down field.
“I thought the defense reacted really well to the gameday. I don’t think the offense reacted quite as well but of course they were a little outmanned as far as the line play but leading up to today it has been great. We had a couple of really good scrimmages this past week and it boded well going into this and it was good exposure to see a game-like situation.”
Despite the final on the scoreboard reading 14-0 in Gold’s favor, Blue showed that the defense will be looking to hunt heads and make a statement to any and all opposition this upcoming season. Freshman
LB Mark James (Fort Worth Dunbar HS) capped off a productive first half for the defense as he was able to come up with an interception at midfield with 16 seconds left to have the score reading Gold 7, Blue 0 heading into intermission.
The Gold touchdown was result of a 48-yard touchdown pass as freshman QB Jack Kemp (Decatur HS) found his freshman receiver Gleb “The Russian Missile” Beliav for the score. That play was set up earlier by Gold’s first big play of the day as freshman wide receiver Le’Mant Monroe (Houston Bellaire HS) hauled in a 29-yard reception to finally give Gold some momentum.
Blue opened up the second half once again asserting their will on the Gold team as they forced Gold to punt on the opening drive and forced a fumble on the subsequent drive thanks to freshman defensive lineman Ucheoma Oparaochaekue (Mansfield HS) breaking through the line and forcing the quarterback to fumble.
However the offense quickly found focus on its third drive of the second half as QB Michael Johnson (Richardson HS) conducted a series where he hit sophomore receiver Anthony Caston (Cedar Hill) three times on the same drive with the third reception of the drive resulting in an 18-yard touchdown reception for Caston.
Wesleyan will now avert their attention towards preparing for McPherson College on September 3rd with their spring scrimmage over and take the experience learned from the scrimmage which Coach Prud’homme simply and enthusiastically described as, “All in all it was a positive experience and really good.”
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