PINETOWN — A promising scrimmage gave hope to Northside coach Keith Boyd and his team that last year’s struggling ways might be behind them as the Panthers clashed with Southside, East Carteret and North Pitt earlier this week and held their own.
A year ago, Northside finished the season with a 0-9 record but the development of the Panthers’ players, coupled with some added young talent, has Boyd feeling encouraged about where his team is at right now.
“The preseason has gone really well. We certainly have a lot of work to do but I see some good things and the kids are working hard and really act like they enjoy playing football,” Boyd said.
The Panthers’ coach said his team is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was at this time last season.
“It’s not even comparable,” Boyd said. “We’re still really young, we have sophomores and juniors starting everywhere but for the most part we’re way, way ahead of where we were at this point last year.”
At the scrimmage Boyd’s team ran nearly 100 plays, which gave him a good chunk of game film to evaluate before the team’s season opener at Creswell next Friday. After reviewing the film, Boyd gave it two thumbs up.
“All the kids played pretty hard, it was a lot of fun,” Boyd said. “We had a number of kids play well. Noel Howsin at quarterback had about three touchdowns. Antonio Woods, our power back, did some good things and the offensive line blocked pretty well. … (6-8 freshman) Edrice Adebayo looked pretty good. He had about three catches for about 60 yards.
“Defensively, right now we looked the best in the scrimmage that we have in about four or fives years as far as just going out and attacking.
“All in all we were pretty pleased, but again we have a lot of work to do. We’re certainly not where we want to be but it’s encouraging to see how we were able to compete against these other teams and hold our own.”