By Craig Brown

The Lake View Wild Gators came to Dillon Thursday for a friendly 7-on-7 matchup with the Dillon Christian School Warriors.

The contest took place on the Warrior practice field with several fans from both schools in attendance. 7-on-7 is basically a game of touch football. The offense has four seconds to get the ball in play or the play is whistled dead. The only down lineman allowed to participate is the center. On defense, linebackers, cornerbacks, and safeties are put to the test against the offense’s quarterback, ends, wide receivers, and backs. Only pass plays are allowed.

Although no score was kept, the Wild Gators seemed to have edged the Warriors in this area. The purpose of this meeting was for training purposes but both teams and coaches seemed to have enjoyed this outing.

The players played without pads as August 1st is the official day for full pads to be worn. Helmets and cleats were worn for safety as in any early season practice session.

The Wild Gator passing and receiving looked very good and maybe one of the best ever while the secondary defenders and linebackers showed good speed.

The Warriors are much improved this year with good quarterbacking and receiving and look to be very competitive in their region.

Lake View Head Coach, Daryl King said he was pleased to participate in the 7-on-7 matchup and thanked the Warrior program for inviting his team to come to Dillon. King stated it was a fun and rewarding experience for his players and coaches.

Lake View Assistant Coach Andy Ford stated that the Wild Gators were coming around but some of the top players were still working on the farm and missing some practice sessions.

I can never get coach King or any of his assistants to give a prediction as how they expect their season to end up so I will give mine: the Wild Gators will have a winning season and be strong in the playoffs.

Warrior Head Coach Christian Wolfe said he was very happy to compete on a friendly field with the Wild Gators and was thankful that they wanted to participate. Wolfe said that he and his coaches learned a lot about strengths and weaknesses of their players in Thursday’s matchup.

Wolfe added that his team was much improved, but, like Lake View, would not give any advanced predictions. On the other hand, assistant coaches Joey Boykin and Steve Johnson boldly stated that there were certain teams in their region marked for doom this year. I will omit the names of these teams just in case a game does not go as planned.

Football practice sessions are not known to be fun but 7-on-7 could be compared to a Saturday outing with some friends for a game of touch football with the exception of Thursday being played by talented friends.

The Warriors also went to Darlington on Saturday, July 13, to compete in a 10 team 7-on-7 elimination event. The teams were divided into two groups with the Warriors tying their division at 3-1 and advancing. The Warriors eliminated some much larger schools in this event and got a good boost in confidence.

The Warriors were eventually eliminated by Wilson Hall, the largest 3A team in SCISA, who did not lose a game in this event.