Defense sets the tone for Heritage during scrimmage
Fans who showed up at Jeff Sims Field last Tuesday night got to see a lot of passing, but not a whole lot of points as the Heritage defense ruled the night in a Navy-and-Red intersquad scrimmage.
A very nice 18-yard touchdown catch by Dylan Bryan just over three minutes into the second half turned out to be the winning score as the Navy squad eked out a 7-3 win over the Red.
“It was the first time we’ve gotten to see the guys in pads and gotten to see them compete a little bit under the lights,” said head coach E.K. Slaughter. “It was good to be out here.
“I think it was pretty typical for a pre-season scrimmage, especially with the lack of a pre-season that we’ve had, but we’ll get them there. We did a couple of good things offensively and I’m excited with what we’re going to be able to do with those guys.”
Like some other teams around the state, Heritage set up the intersquad scrimmage after the GHSA prohibited pre-season scrimmages against other schools earlier this summer due to concerns raised by COVID-19.
Senior quarterback Nick Hanson completed his first three passes for 29 yards, but both offenses would have trouble moving the ball after that as there were only four more first downs in the first half after the initial two.
Hanson, playing quarterback for both teams and wearing a white non-contact jersey, was touched up for three sacks in the first half, two by senior defensive end Jonathan Washburn and one by junior Trey Weldon.
The first and only scoring drive of the first half was led by freshman back-up quarterback Brady Chandler. Chandler found J.D. Black on his first pass attempt and Black took the quick screen, got past a defender and raced down the sideline for 53 yards to the Navy 31-yard line. Chandler hit Black for six more yards on third down to set up a 47-yard field goal by junior Anderson Britton.
The younger kids played the entire second quarter with neither team able to generate any more points.
Freshman Rhett McDonald also added a sack for the Navy team as the Red team took a 3-0 lead into halftime.
The starters played for eight minutes in the third quarter and Hanson would lead a scoring drive on the Navy’s first possession of the second half.
Starting near midfield, his first pass was incomplete, but a six-yard pass to Cade Kiniry and a 29-yard strike to Bryan moved the ball all the way to the Red 18.
On the very next play, Hanson lofted a ball towards the corner of the end zone and Bryan made a nice over-theshoulder catch and was able to get his feet inbound for the score. Britton added the PAT
to put the Navy in front 7-3. It would turn out to be the winning score of the night.
Hanson finished the scrimmage 17 for 30 in the air for 148 yards, while Chandler was an impressive 9 of 11 for 89 yards. Bryan had a team-high four catches for 72 yards and Logan Lowe added three catches for 38 yards. Black was the top pass catcher for the JV players with three catches for 69 yards.
“Nick did a good job,” Slaughter said. “He made some pretty good reads and made some good throws. We expect him to do those things being a three-year starter and we’re expecting some big things out of Nick this year.
“I really like Brady. He’s a
good, young kid coming in as a freshman. He’s going to be a really good quarterback one day and he’s getting to train with a quality quarterback like Nick. That’s good for him.
“We’ve got some new guys that have come out (at receiver) and they made some plays tonight. Add that with the guys we’ve got coming back and I really like our core group of receivers. A lot of those guys are threeyear starters. They understand the game and know how to run routes and know how to make adjustments. It’s cool to have experience in those spots.”
While the two teams combined for 237 yards pass
ing, the Generals attempted just 13 running plays in the scrimmage, which resulted in negative total yards. Adding in sacks, Heritage ran for minus-42 yards on the night.
“I think we’re going to be tough to deal with defensively,” Slaughter continued. “What we do is tough and Coach (Jeremy) New does a good job preparing our guys and they play hard. That’s where it all starts.
“We really expect our special teams to be good, too. Coach (Chris) Hight does a great job with them, coaching them up. He puts a lot of time and effort into it and we are expecting to be really good there this year.”
Up next for Heritage is the season-opener, set for this Friday, when county rival LFO comes to Boynton. Last year contest saw the Generals escape with a 17-16 victory in Fort Oglethorpe.
“The main thing (until then) is to stay away from COVID-19 and stay healthy,” Slaughter said with a nervous chuckle. “It will be a really weird game (against LFO) because we will not have seen each other and we will not have competed against anybody else. But it will be a lot of fun. It’s a big rivalry with those guys and they’ve given us really tough match-ups the last couple of years. We’re expecting the same thing this year.”