Football concluded spring ball on Friday night, as the sophomore Luke Anthony found junior Josh Fink on a 42-yard slant to score a late touchdown and defeat the defense 24-22.
The spring game was a conclusion of 14 practices and one scrimmage that saw the team make a steady progression and become acquainted and re-acquainted with new and old talent.
Head Coach Adam Dorrel, who has now concluded his first spring coming off a regular season with the team, said he saw big improvements from when he arrived a year ago.
“As a whole for 15 practices, it was a great body of work, I thought it was exponentially better than last spring,” Dorrel said. “I feel like we’re moving in the right direction as far as getting better in a lot of ways.”
On the offensive side, senior wide receiver D.J. Fuller returned to the field for his first live game action since 2016 after taking care of his grades during the 2017 campaign.
Fuller was nothing short of impressive in his return catching eight passes for 146 yards and two touchdowns all from redshirt freshman quarterback Luke Anthony. Anthony also had an excellent showing completing 20 of his 28 passes for 291 yards and three touchdowns with only one interception.
Freshman outside linebacker Qua’Shawn Washington, who was moved to the position during spring, grabbed Anthony’s only pick of the evening and turned heads defensively making 10 tackles, with one being for a loss, and one pass breakup.
With a lot of success and momentum coming out of the spring, Dorrel said he plans to keep progressing with his team in the next few weeks.
“We’re going right back into the weight room next week,” Dorrel said. “We’re not going to wait until June 1. We’re going to start having captains practice in another week which will be on their own. We really think that’s going to help us to get going quicker in the summer.”
With the conclusion of spring drills, the football team will begin its official summer workouts on June 1. After summer off-season the team, with its new recruits, will then come together to participate in preseason practices in late July.
