Drawing a crowd

Drawing a crowd

Fans the highlight of Marion spring game

Sports Editor Despite being little more than an organized scrimmage, Marion’s spring football game last Friday night at Patriot Stadium ended up being quite buzzworthy.

For starters, a sizable crowd of football fans attended the event, which capped off Marion’s spring camp and was deemed “Patriot Pride Day” for all sports.

On the turf, Marion came out wearing their new away attire, an all-white helmet-jersey-pant look adorned with silver letters, reminiscent of the University of Oregon and its various uniform combinations over the years.

As far as the game itself, Marion played two 15minute periods of simulated game action that featured the Patriot defense blanking the offense for the first seven drives before there was a score.

From there, the offense was able to come up with five touchdowns, many of which came via the big play.

Added up, it was a night that third-year Marion head coach Jed Davis won’t soon forget.

“We probably had 300400 people here tonight,” Davis said. “We had a student section here on a Friday night, a beautiful night where you’re competing against some awesome spring weather. West Memphis is having graduation tonight and you still get this many people out here? That’s phenomenal.” Davis arrived in Marion on the heels of consecutive 2-9 seasons in 2012 and 2013, and while his first team went just 1-10 in 2014, some younger players took their lumps and rallied to go 5-7 in 2015, capped off by a 14-13 win against Lake Hamilton in the playoffs in November.

The scrimmage was the official end of Davis’s third spring in Marion, and he was reflective upon the differences between his first few practices with the Patriots and now.

“One of the things three years ago, people told me that they weren’t really sure how much the town really cares about football.

I don’t know how much they cared three years ago, but right now the community is behind football and all of our athletic programs. You can see it, and that’s awesome,” Davis says. “As a coach, that’s what you want from your program. You want your kids to feel appreciated.

We work our tails off and now it’s the spring game and there was this turnout.

Just awesome.”

It wasn’t just the coach that noticed the support, however.

“There were a lot of people out here today,” twoyear returning defensive playmaker Kabryn “K.B.”

Williams said after the game. “I think everyone got to see both sides play well, at times.”

Williams and the Marion defense looked to be up to the challenge early on. In the game’s first seven drives, the defense held the offensive Pats to just seven first downs, including four sacks.

The worm began to turn early in the game’s second period when junior Jacob Green heaved a pass down the home sideline to senior wideout Collin Chambers.

Chambers climbed the ladder and hauled in the ball and sprinted to the paint for a 62-yard touchdown pass, the first of the game.

It took the offense one play to respond when senior running back Tom Young took off on a reverse and raced 70 yards for a rushing touchdown reminiscent of his play against Jonesboro during Week 10 last year that garnered attention from sites such as BleacherReport and Maxpreps.

Davis wasn’t ready to read too much into the proceedings.

“The defense got the better of us the first few series,” said Davis. “We finally connected on a big play and got our momentum going, and that’s huge for us. The hardest thing for us in spring is that we don’t want to get anyone hurt. So, on offense, they know that a quick whistle is coming. So sometimes when you might only get two or three, well on Friday you may lower the shoulder and get eight or nine. So I think it was some of that played a role too.”

Marion has a full slate of 7-on-7 tournaments and team camps this summer before traveling to play Gosnell in their benefit scrimmage sometime in August. The Patriots will open their 2016 varsity football season on Friday, September 2 in Wynne against the Yellowjackets at 7 p.m.

By Chuck Livingston