Sikeston football hosts non-contact competition

SHS hosts local teams in 7-on-7 competition

sd_sports@yahoo.com

SIKESTON -- In their second to last practice before taking a month off, the Sikeston Bulldogs hosted three neighboring schools for a seven-on-seven competition.

"Basically what it is is a chance to get the kids together football wise and have them react both on the offensive and defensive side of the ball," Sikeston coach Kent Gibbs said. "You can kind of start looking at some of your kids and seeing where you may need to move them and you also get your base offense and your base defense in."

Joining the Bulldogs in the practice were Cape Central, Jackson and Dexter.

The way the event was organized all four team got to face each other in a 40 minute non-contact contest.

Each team was given 20 minutes on offense and 20 minutes on defense switching sides of the ball at the half.

Though Gibbs said some kids have summer commitments and are not able to attend, the event is a good way to get an early feel on the players who can participate.

"Your wanting to see who is going to compete when it's not going for them real well, whose going to compete when the weathers hot or those type of things," he said

"I think those early season evaluations can kind of get you where you're not starting from scratch when you come back in July."

Sikeston will have one more seven-on-seven contest this Tuesday before taking a month off and coming back the third week of July.

Tuesday's seven-on-seven will have six total schools participating and will be set up in a tournament style.

With the first part of the Bulldogs summer program wrapping up Gibbs said he's happy with his team's results.

"I think we're competing," he said. "We had our contact camp last week, competed well in that.

"You use this, you evaluate and go on. I've been pretty pleased with their effort."