Bragging rights were on the line on Friday evening as the Washington Pam Pack hosted the Southside Seahawks in a football scrimmage. Each team had 10-offensive and defensive snaps on four different occasions. After a short halftime break, the two teams ran game situations. It was a good barometer for both of these teams to see how they will fare next week during the regular season.

On the first drive of the game, the Seahawks put the ball in the end zone after two plays. Jamari Nelson took an edge run around the right side of the field for the score.

After that, the Pam Pack defense turned things up a notch. Southside wouldn’t reach the end zone again despite breaking some big runs on a couple counter plays.

Antwone Godley showcased why he will be a force to be reckoned with this season with his legs and his arm. Godley had a couple of rushing touchdowns on the afternoon.

“I thought we came out and executed really well on both sides of the ball,” Pam Pack head coach Jon Blank said. “We tried some new things on both sides to kind of see what we can do week one through five. Southside gave us a good test today and showed us some things that we needed to see.”

Pam Pack running backs Terry Moore (2) and Jaden Hambric (1) scored rushing touchdowns on Friday, and Baseer Hawkins scored the only touchdown of the day through the air, scoring on a touchdown pass from Hayes Pippin down the middle of the seam.

“We coach our JV’s the same way we coach our varsity kids. We invest a lot of time in them because they’re the future of our program,” Blank said. “We’re getting ready to see the benefit of two classes of kids that played JV under us, are now our varsity kids. We expect the JV’s now to bring that up when they get on to varsity.”

The Pam Pack will face a few teams on their regular season schedule that will give them some similar looks to what Southside showed on Friday night. Washington will travel to North Pitt to play the Panthers this coming Friday night to open up regular season play.

Both teams were able to get their junior varsity players some quality playing time. Freshman Southside quarterback Walker Hill got some playing time for the Seahawks on Friday night and will look to back up Hundley Stallings this season.

Southside head coach Jeff Carrow was overall satisfied with what he saw on Friday night.
“It was exactly what we thought it was going to be. Jon (Blank) does a good job. It was a good physical game, we started out well, then a little conditioning got to us,” Carrow said. “All-in-all it gives us a good look at playoff and conference football. Overall, I was pleased, I really was.”

Carrow mentioned that the Pam Pack was a quality opponent, and it would be tough to run the ball when the gaps closed so quickly.

“We didn’t hold our blocks quite long enough, but against a quality opponent, those holes aren’t going to be so big. We have to hit the hole faster and get north-to-south faster,” Carrow said. “You know, we coached that, and then Aeron (Wright) made a good run on the counter, did exactly what he was coached to do and boom, touchdown.”

Coaches can always find more room for improvement, but the Seahawks will need to do it in order to fare well against the 2-A Ayden-Grifton Chargers in Ayden on Friday night. Kick off is set for 7 p.m.