El Dorado football team busy after dead period.
EL DORADO - El Dorado's football program observed the Arkansas Activities Association's mandated dead period from June 25 through July 9. Dead period ends this week and the Wildcats will be very much alive as they host the Wildcat High School 7-on-7 Tournament Friday.
Pool play will begin at 9 a.m. Games will be played at the high school and Memorial Stadium.
The junior high 7-on-7 tournament will be held July 21.
"I think we'll have two good weeks of tournaments," said El Dorado coach Scott Reed. "We've been kind of limiting it to 12 teams. We might have a few more teams this year. There
are a lot of people who want to come - a few from Louisiana and that's good. The junior high one next week will be good. We have our kids camp starting the 17th. We have a lot going on. We still have a couple of staff changes that are going to happen."
El Dorado coach T.J. Hill left the program to become the defensive coordinator at Camden Fairview. Receivers' coach Julian Jones also left and must be replaced. Reed said ninth grade coach Kris Borosvskis was moved up to replace Hill on the senior high staff.
This will be the fourth year El Dorado will host its 7-on-7 tournament. Monticello won last year. Junction City won before that.
“We’ll play two teams. Both of our teams look pretty well," said Reed. "Our older team won the 7-on-7 in Camden. They had Nashville up there and Prescott. They had a few different teams than we’ll have at ours. We won that one and actually our young guys went undefeated in pool play.
"We also went to Ruston twice - two back-to-back Tuesdays in June with about five other teams and did some round-robin play. It was Ruston High, Delhi and Jonesboro. I thought we had a real good day the last Tuesday before the dead period started. I think we got a little confidence after winning that first 7-on-7."
The Wildcats went to team camps at Nashville, Magnolia and Ouachita Baptist University. At OBU, El Dorado worked out against Sylvan Hills, Fairview, Little Rock Catholic and Pulaski Academy.
"I thought we were good against everybody there except Pulaski Academy. But, you know you kind of have to prepare for them. But, we got good work. All the team camps have been good," said Reed. "So far we've had a good summer. We had three team camps and three 7-on-7's. We've got a lot of kids working. We have more depth than usual, which is good. I'm excited about what's going on. We have a bunch of kids working out. I think we made some progress with some of them that played sparingly last year. We have some depth in some areas we didn't have it last year. Strength-wise, we've been really good. They had a lineman challenge at Camden and our kids did really well. We won that. It was some drills and stuff."
Despite being riddled with injuries, El Dorado went 6-6 last season in the 6A-West. Hooten's Arkansas Football Magazine pegged the Wildcats to finish second in the league behind Greenwood.
"We're going to miss some of the players we lost. We lost some good players at spots. But, I think, top-to-bottom, this group can be pretty good," Reed said. "I was surprised we were ranked second to start with in Hooten's. But, I do think this is a good group. This group has a chance to be pretty special."