BLANCHARD – Chickasha visited neighboring Blanchard Friday night for both teams’ first pre-season football scrimmage and, with both teams able to hit somebody other than a teammate for the first time, it didn’t take very long for things to get a little chippy out on the field.

Chick tight end Taylor Wilson and a Lion linebacker tangled up on the fourth play from scrimmage, clearing both sidelines for a little extra-curricular pushing and shoving match. After getting it out of their systems, though, both teams settled in and concentrated on playing some ball, although Chick coach Rick VanCleave sat his big tight end for the rest of the night.

Both Chickasha’s offense and defense were a little sluggish on their first trips out there but showed improvement in their second set.

“We got off to a really slow start,” VanCleave said. “Part of it was that friction that took place early on but our kids didn’t come out real confident tonight. Our first series, both offensively and defensively, we looked a little shook. We just weren’t performing near as well as we have been at practice. I think a lot of our guys had a little fear in their eyes.”

Blanchard is a very solid, playoff-potential team this year.

“We knew we were going to face a pretty good ball club,” the coach said. “We weren’t afraid of Blanchard but seemed to be more nervous about how we were going to perform.”

After getting out some early jitters, Chickasha looked better in their second sets.

“I was real pleased with our second series,” VanCleave said. “We looked a lot better offensively but I was a little disappointed with our passing game. We looked real sharp this summer but, of course, in the summer you don’t have linemen chasing you. Chase (QB Rodgers) has got to settle down and realize he’s got to stay in that pocket and take a shot sometimes.

“Chance Thomas looked really good running the ball out of the quarterback position. We played a lot better after we got settled down.”

The defense played well but will also need some work.

“We didn’t want to show much tonight - we kept it pretty vanilla, which is pretty typical of your first scrimmage,” the coach said. “We didn’t blitz much, which is something we’re going to do a lot, and I was really pleased with our defensive line play and our secondary. Our linebackers were a little slow reading the plays but they did a decent job.”

Overall, there’s work to be done but nothing too drastic.

“We’ve just got to get some confidence and keep our heads up.”

The freshmen teams got things started and Mike Higgins’ guys played well. Tailback Rashad Garrett busted loose for two big touchdown runs of 55 and 35 yards and linebacker Jacobi Brown came up with a key sack on Blanchard’s QB to kill one of their drives.

Chick QB Dakota Goombi showed some poise running the offense and threw the ball well to set up the running game.

“I was really, really pleased with the kids,” Higgins said. ”We’re a little green in spots but we had some kids really step up and play well. We’ve also got a lot of team speed that I didn’t realize we had until tonight since you don’t see it in practice as much as you do out here.

“We’ve got some good hands in our receiver corps and our defense was unbelievable. They were sticking them all night long. I was super, super happy with these kids.”

Thursday night both Blanchard and Piedmont visit Memorial Stadium for the final scrimmage sets of the year. The Chickasha and Blanchard junior high teams (grades 6-8) start things off at 4:30.

Piedmont will be the Chicks’ opponents for the high school scrims. The freshmen take the field at 5:30 and the high school will follow at 6:30.