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Parkersburg High School QB Cooper Cancade making the most of reps

Parkersburg’s Zane Lewis catches a touchdown pass in traffic during a 7-on-7 against St. Marys at Parkersburg High School. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

PARKERSBURG – On Friday evening at Stadium Field, the Parkersburg Big Reds competed in their third 7-on-7 of the summer.

Red and white head coach Matt Kimes is trying to take advantage of every opportunity at hand as it’s just a little more than a month before PHS welcomes in Morgantown to kick off the campaign.

“It’s great for your skill positions,” admitted Kimes, who is expected to have senior Cooper Cancade engineer the offense. “You know, you got no rush so you don’t have to worry about that and you’re really working on getting on the same page with your receivers.

“We’re working in a lot of new and young guys, so it’s been great for all those guys to get a lot of reps and experience, a lot of evaluation from us as coaches and then we can teach them, too.”

Thus far into the summer, Cancade said things are going fairly smoothly.

“We’ve been doing pretty good,” said the quarterback. “We’ve only lost a couple games and today was fun.

“It’s amazing. I mean everyone is getting it and they are all working as a team, so everyone is keeping each other competitive.”

Cancade added of getting to compete in the 7-on-7s “it helps me work on my reads. All you got to do is get what the defense gives you. You can’t force anything.”

Kimes also likes 7-on-7s because “we got tons of film tonight with lots of reps. Cooper is doing a good job. Cooper’s been ready for this opportunity. He was just stuck behind one of the best that’s played it in a while around here, so, maybe ever. We know he’s ready and he’s excited for that opportunity and we’re excited for him.

“It’s not just Coop, you know. There’s a lot of guys we’re excited about. Like, I mean you looked around the field tonight and I can’t wait to watch the film. I saw just by watching a lot of guys making plays, from freshmen all the way up to seniors. The barrell’s not dry, but we lost some really good players last year. We’d like to think around here we reload. That’s what we are trying to do.”

Cancade, who admitted the goal for himself and everyone on the team is to “get better, get better conditioned,” isn’t necessarily looking forward to the start of practice.

“I mean it’s going to be awful, but we got to get better and get through it,” he quipped.

The signal-caller also noted the bond with his fellow skill positions is coming along nicely, at least on the gridiron.

“It’s been amazing,” he said. “We’ve gone fishing and we go golfing. We had an eight-man scramble the other day.

“Oh, it was awful. It took so long. It was like seven hours. Oh my gosh, it was so hot.”

The Big Reds will compete in their fourth 7-on-7 when Logan High School from the Buckeye State invades for a 10 a.m. showdown Wednesday at Stadium Field.

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