After Friday night’s scrimmage against Pepperell the Cedartown Bulldogs have to feel pretty good about themselves. After all, Cedartown had several highlights during the scrimmage. Cory Gardhigh, Drew Forston and Russell Tillery are just a few of the players who were bright spots for the Bulldogs last Friday night.

“This was a very good scrimmage,” Cedartown Head Coach Everett Kelley said. “Pepperell runs the Power I on offense and I thought we did a good job of lining up and stopping that. Jeremy Ferguson didn’t get a lot of carries for them and you can’t stop a guy like him completely but I thought we did a good job of containing him.”

Kelley was also pleased with how his team performed late during the scrimmage.

“I thought we got tired when the sun was out and didn’t play real good,” said Kelley. “But when the sun went down I thought we played a lot better.”

Dragons coach Lynn Hunnicutt was likewise pleased with the way his Pepperell team played.

“It was a good scrimmage,” Hunnicutt said. “This allowed us to do what we wanted to do. And as far as I know none of our players got hurt and none of the Cedartown players got hurt, so that’s a plus.”

Though the kicking game wasn’t as involved as it will be during regular season games, Tillery did show the Cedartown fans in attendance that his powerful kicking leg could help Cedartown out in difficult situations.

Tillery converted the only extra point attempt he kicked on the night and also nearly converted a 40-yard field goal. The attempt had the distance but was wide left by a few feet.

When the Bulldogs were on offense they were displaying a strong passing attack. Such a solid aerial attack that even the Dragons head coach was impressed.

“Cedartown is a big, strong athletic team and I’m glad this is the only time we have to play them this year,” Hunnicutt said.

“As much as Cedartown was throwing the ball in that last period I thought our secondary did an extremely good job,” Hunnicutt said. “They did score that time when Cory Gardhigh jumped up and tipped that ball to himself and scored. But that was just a great athlete making a great play.”

The play Hunnicutt was talking about occurred with about five minutes left in the last period. Bulldog quarterback Andrew Hutchins dropped back to pass and fired the ball over the middle of the field. A streaking Gardhigh turned, jumped and then tipped the ball to himself for the catch. Gardhigh then proceeded to outsprint the Pepperell secondary to the endzone.

Even though Gardhigh was a big bright spot for Cedartown, junior backup quarterback Forston may have been brighter.

During Cedartown’s time on offense with the junior varsity, Forston showed great presence in the pocket.

On one play, Forston dropped back to pass and was flushed from the pocket. Forston tucked the ball and took off down the left sideline. The fiesty, determined quarterback raced over 50 yards down field for the score. However, a flag negated the touchdown and sent Cedartown back out toward midfield.

Later, after Gardhigh had scored the touchdown in the last period, Forston stole the spotlight again.

During the extra point attempt, the snap was low causing Forston to pick the ball up with Dragon defenders quickly rushing in. Forston grabbed the ball and took off sprinting. While on the run, Forston lobbed a pass over the Pepperell defense into the arms of Gardhigh for a two-point conversion.

However, dispite some bright spots and some not-so bright spots during the scrimmage, one of the main things both head coaches were worried about were injuries. And luckily, neither team had any serious injuries.

“We came out healthy tonight,” said Kelley. “And that’s a good thing. We didn’t want any injuries to happen before the season starts.”