The Fighting Scots football team held a seven-on-seven practice with other teams around the area Wednesday morning.
                                 Andrew Smolar | Sports Editor

The Fighting Scots football team held a seven-on-seven practice with other teams around the area Wednesday morning.

Andrew Smolar | Sports Editor

<p>The seven-on-seven practice was valuable for both the offense and defense to go against players they don’t see everyday and see where they improved from last week.</p>
                                 <p>Andrew Smolar | Sports Editor</p>

The seven-on-seven practice was valuable for both the offense and defense to go against players they don’t see everyday and see where they improved from last week.

Andrew Smolar | Sports Editor

LAURINBURG — The Scotland Fighting Scots football team participated in another seven-on-seven practice with other high school teams from around the area Wednesday morning at Scotland High School. The team competed in one of these sessions last Wednesday before traveling to North Carolina State University for a camp last Friday in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The Fighting Scots ran both the offense and defense against three teams. It was once again a valuable experience for the players to get reps against teams they don’t see everyday.

With summer practices now in full swing, there is a baseline for the team to go on. Last week Head Coach Richard Bailey saw a lot of good but also noted some areas that needed to improve including the team’s conditioning and route running among other things.

A lot can change in one week. Senior Zion Morrison, who has played some tight end this summer after primarily playing defense in the past, proclaimed that the team has shown a bigger desire to be great and improve from last week.

“There’s been a lot of growth since the first few 7 on 7 games,” Morrison said. “The biggest factor that has shown is that as players, the want has shown more. After last week’s 7 on 7 games, we were ready to get back to practice to fix the little mistakes and perfect our offensive schemes. We see the potential we have and want to be the best team we could be.”

Morrison playing some offense has been a real positive to the tight end position and pass catching unit as a whole. Morrison has seemed to transition seamlessly and believes that the coaching has been a big reason why.

“The transition from primarily playing defense to playing tight end a little went very smoothly thanks to Coach Bailey and the rest of the coaches,” Morrison said. “They have been helping me from the start by learning all the calls, my routes, my assignments, etc.”

Morrison is committed to playing at North Carolina A&T State University after this year. For his senior year he wants to lead by example and help his team win.

“If we want to go far we have to have leaders to lead us there and I want to be that person my teammates and coaches can depend on,” Morrison said. “Everyone’s goal is to be a championship caliber team and win the championship game.”

The team will have another seven-on-seven practice on July 10. They have just under two months until their season opener at Dillon on Aug. 23.