RABBITTOWN, Ga. — Matt Turner was in the experimenting mood on Friday. The East Hall coach chose the Vikings’ scrimmage game against Pickens at East Hall Stadium to get an atypical view of his squad.
“I wanted to go up (to the press box in the first half) and just get a real bird's eye view of where we were at with our varsity guys,” he said at halftime after watching the Dragons take a 14-0 lead. “I just really wanted to get a vision of seeing the things that we need to improve on. So, No. 1, we just need to do the little things to get out of our own way.”
The Pickens defense was able to stifle Jamarcus Harrison, Chasen Jones, Lukas Pruitt, and the rest of the Vikings offense. They managed just three first downs over their first four drives, including intercepting Harrison on a deep throw at the Dragons’ 27. Pickens later stuffed Pruitt on a fourth down in East Hall territory.
“Too many drops, too many silly mistakes, blocking the wrong guy, stuff like that. We were sloppy, sloppy, sloppy at times,” Turner said.
Pickens took a 7-0 lead on a 2-yard touchdown run with just under six minutes left in the first quarter on its second drive. The drive was aided by an East Hall penalty and a 22-yard screen pass on third-and-20.
Following the stop on fourth down, Pickens scored with 56 seconds left on a 5-yard touchdown run for a 14-0 lead. But the Vikings defense held an experienced Pickens offense to just one long drive in the half.
“We gave up some cheap ones, gave up a third-and-20. Gave up another big third down,” Turner said. “But you're not going to shut them down every single drive. So I thought the defense played pretty well overall.”
East Hall did get one last drive in the first half and Harrison connected on three passes and the Vikings also got a Pickens pass interference in the end zone. Harrison connected on a TD pass but an ineligible man downfield wiped it out as time expired. They got one more shot but his pass to Jones fell short to end the half.
Quarterbacks were off-limits, taking away some of Harrison’s dual threat effectiveness. But Turner said he feels they’ll have time to correct “the little things” before next week’s opener against Banks County.
“Jamarcus can run, so that takes him a lot out of his game,” Turner said of the “no-contact” aspect of the scrimmage. “That alleviates a lot of what we do when he can't run. But just the execution was the issue.
“We got to get better at execution. And I thought we pressed a little bit of time trying to make too much happen, instead of just doing the first down little things.”
