Navy upstages Red in Heritage spring scrimmage
The Heritage Generals concluded two weeks of spring football practice on Thursday night with a Navy-andRed intrasquad scrimmage on Jeff Sims Field.
The Navy squad scored on the game’s opening possession as rising senior quarterback Kaden Swope engineered a 12-play, 70-yard drive. Mixing up the pass and the run, the Navy team picked up four first downs before running back Landon Cansler scored from three yards out.
The first of four Chipper Grayson extra points on the night put the Navy squad in front 7-0 with 6:31 left in the opening quarter.
Both squads went threeand-out on their next possessions and a bad snap thwarted the Red team’s next possession before the Navy squad got the ball back seven seconds into the second period of play.
Another 70-yard drive ensued, this one in seven plays. Swope hit Tyler Cheatwood twice for 30 yards on the march, while Drew Bradley hauled in a 16-yard screen pass for a third-down conversion. Rising sophomore Jacob Dawson ran three times, clicking off runs of 12 and 18 yards before finding the end zone from five yards out with 7:12 left to go in the half.
After forcing a turnover on downs, Navy took over at the Red 25-yard line and got all the way down to the 6. However, the Red team defense stiffened and held on fourth-and-two in the waning seconds of the half.
Two more scores happened in the final five minutes of the third quarter.
Red quarterback Brady Chandler lofted a long pass down the visitors’ sidelines that Max Owens ran under on his way to completing a 75-yard scoring strike with 4:56 left in the period, cutting Navy’s lead down to seven.
However, the Navy team answered with one final touchdown. The key play came on second-and-10 from their own 30. Dawson took a handoff and appeared to be stopped behind the line. But he reversed his field and scampered all the way down the home sidelines for a 40yard gain before defensive back Drew Dietz saved a touchdown with a tackle.
Swope clicked off a 20yard keeper on the very next play and Bradley ran for seven before the drive was capped by a 3-yard TD run from Bradley just before the clock expired in the quarter.
The freshmen and sophomores played a scoreless final period to wrap up the scrimmage with the Navy picking up a 21-7 victory.
“I was pleased,” head coach
E.K. Slaughter said. “We got out of it without getting injured, so that was the number one thing we were looking for. We definitely saw some flashes. Anytime you split your team in half, you’re going to have some ugly moments, but there were definitely some flashes of good football from a lot of different guys.”
Swope went 8 of 14 in the air for 86 yards and added 35 yards on three rushes. Cheatwood caught six passes for 70 yards, while the ground game was also split between Dawson (4-34), Bradley (829) and Cansler (5-21).
Chandler finished with 124 yards on 7 of 11 passing, while Owens caught three passes for 91 yards. Rising freshman Brayden Slaughter led the Red squad with nine yards on five carries.
“It was an opportunity for the guys to have some
fun, but for (the coaches), it was another opportunity to do some more evaluating and get that last little bit of film on a couple of guys to see what the depth chart could look like and to see how we might need to move some things around in the summer to prepare. Still, we saw some good things.”
Heritage will face Bradley Central in a preseason scrimmage on Aug. 11 in Cleveland, Tenn. before opening the 2022 season on Aug. 19 at rival Ringgold.