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Monticello takes to turf, plays well

With just two weeks to go until the season opener against Albemarle, the Monticello football team finally got an opportunity to lineup against another team, scrimmaging for the first time against Rustburg.

“I don’t think I’ve ever gone this far into the year with out a scrimmage,” said Monticello coach Brud Bicknell. “It’s nice to have real game situations out there, a lot of times things are really controlled and slowed down. We feel like we got a good look at our team, even special teams.”

The scrimmage was the first live, team on team action on the Mustangs’ new field turf, installed during the offseason.

The Mustangs offense had a tough go of it in the early going, but CJ Page kick-started a nice drive with a long sprint to the outside before capping it off with a short touchdown run. Tyler Moneymaker took first team reps at Quarterback as Monticello looks to find Michael Graham’s replacement. The Mustangs were in the redzone on a consistent basis but only came away with one score.

Defensively, the Mustangs dealt almost exclusively with the run. Monticello was able to force and recover a pair of turnovers, and the front seven played their zones about as well as one would expect for the first scrimmage of the year.

Overall, Bicknell was pleased with his team, especially considering the amount of first time players on the varsity level.

“I thought we faced a real tough physical defense and on offense, we were able to show that we could run the ball,” Bicknell said. “Defensively I thought we did a good job of playing against the option considering how little preparation we had for it. We played assignment football.”

As far as improvements go, Bicknell would like to see his team get a bit lower, and, as is the case with any team at any time of year, work on executing plays with more efficiency.

“My guess is that our pad level was a little too high and we need to get that a little lower,” Bicknell said. “We also could execute a little better in all aspects.”

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