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Football: Eagles impress at scrimmage
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FarkCHADRON, Neb. — A 70-yard jaunt by junior tailback Aaron Cooksley helped get Chadron State College’s first scrimmage of the fall underway on Wednesday afternoon.
Cooksley took the handoff from quarterback Joe McLain, burst through the line, cut to his right about 15 yards down field, made several players miss and never stopped running until he had scored against the No. 1 defense. The big run came on the fifth play from scrimmage.
The remainder of the scrimmage appeared to be pretty much a standoff with both the offense and the defense coming up with some big plays.
The five quarterbacks — who played about equally — combined to complete 23-of-41 passes and had three passes intercepted.
Head coach Bill O’Boyle said he was pleased with the scrimmage.
“We held on to the ball well (no lost fumbles) and have had more mistakes other years in our early scrimmages than we had yesterday,” said O’Boyle. “We had five motion penalties that hurt, but overall we ran the offense pretty well. Joe (McLain) made some good checks and did some nice things.”
The coach said Cooksley’s run was outstanding and noted that the junior from Grand Island is having an excellent camp.
O’Boyle was particularly happy that there were no apparent injuries during the scrimmage.
Some of the bigger plays saw McLain hook up with wide receiver Brandon Harrington on about a 25-yard pass play while Garrett Treffer, the second quarterback to take the field, threw a shovel pass to Evan Pilkington for a 20-yard pickup and later hit Josh Collett for a 27-yard gain.
A Treffer pass also was picked off by outside linebacker Aaron Bauer, who read the play well.
One of the scrimmage’s prettiest plays saw quarterback Jon Kuzava, a redshirt freshman, thread the needle to transfer Allan Schmaltz on a pass play that went for about 60 yards, but it was called back because of a motion penalty. On the next play, Kuzava’s pass was intercepted by linebacker Thomas Wells.
Some impressive running came about three-fourths of the way through the 80-play scrimmage when redshirt freshman Brett Gumb had three successive carries that netted about 40 yards. Transfer Brunau Augustin had a 40-yard romp a little later in the action.
As the scrimmage was winding down and mostly freshman were on the field, quarterback Anthony Springer hooked up with John Toston for passes covering 20 and 15 yards and he also connected with Cody Roes on a 20-yard play. The pass was one of three that Roes caught.
Another freshman, Matt Harris, turned in a couple of sizable runs in the late going.
The Eagles, who will open their season Aug. 28 at the University of Mary in Bismarck, will scrimmage again Sunday afternoon.
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