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Wirt, Magnolia open gridiron camps

Each eager to put up wins in 2017

Photo by Jay W. Bennett Wirt County assistant football coach Taz Yoak goes through a drill with the Tigers during a Wednesday morning practice in Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH — Then first-year Wirt County head football coach Isac Osborne recorded a victory in his initial game leading the Tigers last season when the orange and black rolled Calhoun County.

However, things didn’t go so well the rest of the year as the Tigers were snake-bitten with injuries and lost their final nine contests.

Wednesday marked the final day for prep gridiron programs before they can don the pads for the first time.

While the Tigers only had 22 players out on Wednesday, coach Osborne fully expects “to have between 26 and 30 players. We had a few guys out today. A couple kids were dehydrated and a couple kids just weren’t here.

“I think the biggest thing is we’ve had a full year in the system and we’ve had an offseason workout program and we’ve had a summer workout program. We had our June camp and this is their second time in the offense.

“Right now we are leaps and bounds ahead of where we were last year.”

That includes having senior Aaron Peterman back in the fold. Peterman tore his ACL in a scrimmage last summer and missed his entire junior year. He was coming off a sophomore campaign where he finished with 97 tackles and seven sacks.

Senior Dakota Richards, the Tigers’ leading rusher and second best receiver a year ago, once again is expected to be heavily involved in the offense.

Currently, the coaching staff is looking at Casey Stanley and Trent Richards at the quarterback position.

“We’ve got to try and be balanced,” admitted Osborne. “We are not fortunate to have 250 and 280 pound kids who just eat hay for breakfast and just run over people. If you can’t beat them doing what they are doing you got to do some things different and that’s where we are at right now, just trying to stay balanced and mix things up.

“They are getting after it and we’ve got a lot of young players that love the weight room and we’ve got some seniors right now that are leading especially well. We are excited about the season. Like I said, we don’t know what that means, but there’s a lot more excitement and a lot more fun going into it this year.”

The Tigers will have a 10 a.m. scrimmage next Saturday in Waterford, which also will include Zanesville Rosecrans. The Friday before opening up at rival Calhoun County, the orange and black will mix it up with Beallsville and Notre Dame.

∫ NEW MARTINSVILLE — Coming off a 2-8 campaign in 2016, Magnolia head football coach Dave Chapman is hoping things will go better this season.

Like the rest of the Mountain State, the Blue Eagles opened camp Monday and are preparing for their first scrimmage at 10 a.m. next Saturday in St. Clairsville.

“It’s a process and I like where we are at after three days,” admitted Chapman, whose program will play host at 7 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 18 to Valley (Wetzel) in their second scrimmage before squaring off on the road at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 26 at Stadium Field versus Parkersburg Catholic in the season opener.

Although the Blue Eagles lost the talents of starting quarterback Nick Priem and 900-plus yard rusher Chase Street, there’s plenty of optimism in Wetzel County.

“We’ve got 32 and we had 32 all summer,” Chapman added. “The three weeks in June, pretty much, we knew what we had going in and 32 was the number. We’re pleased.

“Obviously, a lot of guys are back off last year’s team. We were a young team. We actually return eight starters on both sides.”

Chapman is expecting last year’s backup signal-caller Pat Mirandy to lead the offense this season.

“He played against Wheeling Central and a half versus River when Nick was hurt,” said the coach. “He played pretty well the game against Central and threw for like 220 yards. We just couldn’t stop them, but Pat played really well.

“Every kid is working hard, but we are still not where we need to be. We’re getting done what we need to get done and that’s the key. We just got to get ready to play.”

The coach also added of the three-week summer period “we did some installing during that period of time. Actually, the three-week period put us ahead coming into August.

“The time they allow in the summer with the kids, it really helped the quarterback. Not saying he’s game ready, but he’s way ahead of where he was going to be.”

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