By Mike Hutchens, Union City Schools Communications Director
Nick Markle saw what he needed to see to deem Union City’s initial preseason scrimmage a success.
“I saw what I needed to, and what I saw was pleasing for our first time out,” said the Golden Tornado coach who watched his troops outscore Class 5A Brighton three-touchdowns-to-one in a steamy 90-minute session Friday on the Cardinals’ artificial turf. “You’re always a little anxious with these first scrimmages because you can’t get a true gauge of things against your jayvees and second-teamers in practice. You just don’t know.
“But I thought we were physical against a much-bigger program. I thought our veterans looked like veterans who’ve played a lot of football, and I saw some of our younger kids make strides – which they need to do for us to develop some depth. Getting them on tape will help us coach them up, and that’ll begin immediately as we continue into the preseason and in preparation for Week 1.”
The two squads ran just 20 plays each with their starters before reserves got the same amount of work in the oppressive heat. The session ended with Brighton being turned away on four plays inside the red zone in a goal-line period.
UC – which will play in Single-A the next two seasons – scored three times during its second 10-play sequence after turning the ball over inside the Cardinal 20-yard line on its initial series.
Fullback Jacob Arnold burst up the middle for a 75-yard TD to account for the Twisters’ first score before Tayehari Jones took an option pitch from quarterback Keeton Brown and scooted 30 yards to paydirt.
Union City’s final TD to cap an impressive series of plays came on a 55-yard pass from Brown to Cohen Simpson, who made a nice adjustment to out-battle a Brighton defender and then ramble into the endzone.
Simpson earlier had another pretty catch in traffic for a big gainer before the Tornadoes’ ill-timed fumble deep inside Cardinal territory.
The Purple and Gold gave up a lone TD on Brighton’s second possession on a medium-range pass and run that covered nearly 60 yards. Other than that, the Twisters were solid on defense, regularly rallying to the ball with several players and coming up with a handful of fumble recoveries during the jayvee portion of the scrimmage.
“Camp was tough on the guys… we put in a lot of work that was grueling,” Markle continued when assessing his team’s work to date. “We’re really working hard to try and get our young guys up to speed, and you find out a lot more about your guys when they’re fatigued or things aren’t going to script. We don’t want frontrunners, and we wanted to see what we had when we were behind the eight-ball.
“We’ll continue to establish our true identity in the preseason and hopefully be ready for a long journey this fall when the season begins.”
Union City will scrimmage for a second time next Friday at home against Peabody.
