DEFENSE RULES AT JAMBOREE

St. Vincent's Nathan Thomas tackled Cape Central's Otis Turner during Friday's jamboree at Perryville High School.

PERRYVILLE -- If Friday night's jamboree at St. Vincent High School is any indication, this could be a low scoring season.

Of 144 offensive plays between four teams, only two touchdowns were scored, one by St. Vincent on Jackson and one by Jackson against Perryville.

St. Vincent -- a Class 1A school which was the state runner-up last season -- was the only team to score a touchdown and shut out its opponents during the scrimmage format.

"I thought we played pretty well," St. Vincent coach Paul Sauer said. "All in all, I think it was a pretty successful night."

During the jamboree, each team would run 12 offensive plays, then turn around and play defense for 12 plays. There was no kicking or punting, and penalty yards were not marched off.

One would think the jamboree format would be conducive to scoring touchdowns but that wasn't the case.

Jackson scored in the opening scrimmage against Perryville. Junior wide out Tory Meyr hauled in a 29-yard pass from junior quarterback Chris Stockton.

St. Vincent's touchdown was punched in by junior fullback Nathan Thomas, but the score was set up by a 49-yard pass from junior Jonathan Paulus to junior Ryan Brown. Brown made a nice catch and nifty move in the open field and took the ball down to the 11-yard line. He almost caught a touchdown pass later on but was ruled out of bounds.

"We've got some high expectations of Ryan this year and hopefully we can see more of the same throughout this season," said Sauer.

St. Vincent got absolutely nowhere against Cape Central. The Tigers held St. Vincent to minus-9 yards on the first four plays and minus-2 yards overall.

Central defensive tackle Clay Willis was especially troublesome for St. Vincent in the first series.

"Clayton looked good until he got tired," said Central coach Lawrence Brookins. "He got a bit winded there near the end of each session, but he's going to definitely be an anchor for us there on the defensive line."

All four coaches in the jamboree were in agreement that they were pleased with some areas, while other areas needed some work.

"We did some things better and we did some things the same as we did last year," said Jackson coach Carl Gross. "I thought we played hard, but I thought we made some mistakes. We didn't keep our feet driving on tackles. We missed more assignments than I thought we would on the line of scrimmage and that was a little disappointing. I think we are better on the offensive line than what we showed tonight. But overall, I was pleased with the effort. We'll learn a lot about ourselves from this film.

"I think we looked good in particular on the defensive line. There, we looked much better there than we did a year ago. I thought our linebackers looked better than a year ago also. I thought Tory Meyr played well at safety, but I thought our corners didn't play as well as they should've or could've."

Cape Central came about as close to scoring a touchdown as a team can get. Senior wide receiver Chad Jones wrestled a pass away from a Jackson defender which ended up being a 26-yard completion from Jeff Dunaway. He landed on the 1-yard line. Jackson tackled Central running back Travis Turner for a 2-yard loss on the next play, which was the Tigers' 12th play of the series.

"I trust Jeff Dunaway," Brookins said of the junior quarterback. "I know he's going to give us everything he's got. He's going to be alright. I also trust his backup right now. T.J. Erlcacker has been a big surprise."

Donnie McClinton and O.J. Turner both had their impressive moments in the backfield. McClinton ran for 46 yards on 12 carries, including runs of 11 and 14 yards. O.J. Turner ran for 27 yards on four carries.

"As far as our No. 1 group (on the offensive line) we're still not very good yet," Brookins explained. "We have a chance to improve there dramatically."

Perryville coach Jerry Tucker saw similar room for improvement.

"We learned on some things we need to work on and that's what we came here to do," Tucker said. "The kids were physical, they played hard and the defense was swarming and that's what we were looking for. I was pleased with the front two lines on the defense. They looked real good. The defensive backs had some jitters. We'll work on that and that'll be alright. Our offensive line needs to come off the line better and work more as a unit and our backfield has to start blocking better."