The 72nd Bossier City Lions Club Jamboree Friday night at M.D. Ray Field at Airline Stadium was pretty typical as far as jamborees go.
Each of the six parish teams has reason for optimism heading heading into Friday’s season openers based on their performances. But each also has some things to work on, tweak and improve.
In the first 24-minute “game,” Parkway edged Benton 20-18. In the second, Bossier defeated Plain Dealing 24-0. In the finale, Airline defeated Haughton 14-6.
Parkway Head Coach Coy Brotherton has participated in many jamborees as a coach and player.
“It went fine,” he said. “It’s a scrimmage game where you try to go out there and work on a lot of different things to kind of see what you have going into the season.
“Even though there’s a scoreboard that’s turned on you kind of worry about that a little bit. I don’t think that’s the main concern of a lot of coaches in a jamboree.
“To be able to accomplish what we wanted to accomplish and see what we needed to see and still come out on the winning side of it was a good thing for us.”
Parkway senior Kaleb Williams threw touchdown passes of about 35 yards to Gabriel Gray and 12 to Gary Burney. Freshman AJ Johnson scored on a two-yard run. The Panthers were successful on one of two two-point conversion attempts. They also had an extra-point kick blocked.
Parkway, which went 8-3 last season, opens the season Friday against Carroll at home.
Coming off a 1-9 season with a new head coach, Stephen Dennis, it was probably a bit more important for Benton to have a good jamboree performance.
Dennis thought his Tigers did just that.
The Tigers had a chance to tie it late but the Panthers stopped a two-point conversion and ran out the clock.
“I think we did a lot of really good things,” Dennis said. “I was really proud. Parkway has a lot of starters returning off of a very good team last year. They play a physical style of football and I felt like our guys really matched that physicality at a high level. So I was really proud of that.
“We’ve got some things to clean up, defensively, execution-wise, tackling-wise. I didn’t feel like we tackled as well as we should’ve.
“I’m really, really proud of what the offensive staff did led by Coach (Jeff) Bordelon. I think they had a really good gameplan and executed that really well.”
Maurice Goins, who is also an outside linebacker, scored on two short runs after good drives. Greg Chambers scored one touchdown.
“A jamboree is supposed to be a snapshot of your team,” Dennis said. “We had a chance to get a two-point conversion to tie it, send it into half if you were looking at that as two quarters of football.
“And so I was happy with where we were at. We were in a position to play and win the game.”
Benton hosts Northwood, which went 10-2 last season, in its opener Friday.
Bossier Head Coach Gary Smith was mostly pleased with what he saw from his team.
“It went OK,” he said. “We’ve got to cut down on our mistakes, of course. And we definitely have to improve on special teams.
“I thought the kids played hard. We’ve just got to maybe make some personnel changes, fix some mistakes.”
New starting quarterback Quinton Hodge ran for one touchdown and threw TD passes to Montrevell Lewis and James Cobb. Jaylen James scored a rushing touchdown.
Smith was impressed with Plain Dealing, which played its first jamboree under Head Coach Jerry Byrd Jr.
“I thought Plain Dealing did really well. For the kids he’s got, he’s done a good job. They played hard. It was competitive.”
Bossier opens the season Friday against North Caddo at home. Plain Dealing doesn’t open until Week 2 against Ringgold at home.
Airline Head Coach Justin Scogin said his team got what it needed out of the jamboree.
“We kind of got exposed in some places,” he said “We did some stuff well. We know what we need to work on this week for Barbe. For us to be a good team we’ve got to fix the small problems, small errors and we can be pretty good.”
LSU commit Kenny Darby scored on a 55-yard pass from junior Chase Deon Williams. Veteran David Allen scored on a short run.
Airline, which went 10-0 in the regular season and finished 11–1 last years, hosts Barbe in its season opener Friday.
Haughton Head Coach Matthew Sewell was very happy with his team’s performance. The Vikings defeated the Bucs 56-13 in the regular season last year.
“We played really well,” he said. “I was super pleased. I kind of thought throughout the offseason that we have gotten better. It’s been pretty good to go out the last couple of weeks and kind of test ourselves against some good opponents, Minden, which won eight games last year, and Airline, who won eleven.
“I know those guys have some guys who aren’t back this year, but it’s good to go out and compete against somebody else and play well.”
Brandon Craig, coming off an outstanding sophomore season, scored on a short run. That came about four plays after the Bucs recovered a squib kickoff.
“Offensively we ran the ball well,” Sewell said. “I didn’t think we threw it and caught it great, but I thought we played well up front. The biggest issue last night was penalties. We got behind the chains multiple times on penalties.”
The Bucs had six penalties, including three holding.
“Defensively we played really well,” Sewell said. “Really pleased with the defense the first two weeks of the fall. In both scrimmages defensively we made some strides.
“I really think the first two weeks we’ve done a really great job of running with the ball. We’ve tackled well and done much better against the run. And we’ve played well against the pass so. Looking forward to seeing them grow over the next ten weeks.”
The Bucs open the season Friday against Homer at home.