Callaway, Harris County meet in spring game
Published 12:30 am Saturday, May 15, 2021
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By KEVIN ECKLEBERRY
Daily News
HAMILTON – For the first time since they won their breakthrough state championship in December, the Callaway Cavaliers shared a football field with another team.
Callaway, which beat Fitzgerald 22-17 in December to capture the Class AA state title, faced Harris County in its spring game on Thursday night in Hamilton.
The game marked the conclusion of Callaway’s spring-practice period which spanned 10 days over three weeks.
“I’m really proud of the strides that we’ve made over the last three weeks on the field,” said Callaway head coach Pete
Pete Wiggins. “We’ve got a long way to go. We’ve got a lot of shoes to fill off of last year’s team, but I’m really proud of some individual efforts tonight, along with our team effort. I saw some guys make plays we were hoping would, and I’m looking forward to going back and look at film, and studying film, and just getting better.”
One of the standout players for Callaway was rising sophomore quarterback DeShun Coleman, whose brother Demetrius Coleman was the starting quarterback the past three seasons.
DeShun Coleman led the Cavaliers to a touchdown on their first possession of the night, and he ended up throwing two scoring passes.
Denorayon Reid, who is still in the eighth grade, also performed well at quarterback and tossed a scoring pass, and Kier Jackson and Deontaeous Brooks had touchdown runs.
Harris County also had its share of offensive highlights, with quarterback Cooper Corey throwing a pair of scoring passes.
“It was a really good test,” Wiggins said. “Coach Fox and his staff do a tremendous job. They always have a great football team, so it was a good matchup for us. We’ve got a long way to go, and I’m proud of our effort tonight.”
The Cavaliers went to work offensively on their opening possession, with Coleman completing all four of his pass attempts, including a 20-yard touchdown pass to Carlos Billingslea, one of the stars of last year’s championship team.
In the title game against Fitzgerald, Billingslea had a first-half touchdown catch from Demetrius Coleman.
DeShun Coleman later threw a touchdown pass of about 20 yards to Treyonn Tucker, who went up and snatched the ball away from a defender on a lob pass in the end zone.
Reid got into the act in the fourth quarter with a 20-yard touchdown pass to D’Arcy Harris, who will be a sophomore this season.
The Cavaliers got it done on the ground as well.
Brooks, who’ll be a sophomore this fall, had a scoring run of about five yards, and Jackson had a 1-yard touchdown run after nearly scoring from the 10-yard line on the previous play.
Jackson, who’ll be a senior next season, was a standout linebacker last season who figures to get plenty of playing time at running back this year.
Rising junior Amarion Truitt also had some solid runs during the game.
Defensively, the Cavaliers were terrific, although Corey did make a handful of plays.
Quenderious Redding and Harris both had interceptions for the Cavaliers.
It was an overall productive night, and Wiggins was glad the players were able to have spring practice after it was canceled last year because of COVID-19.
“I’m really proud to be back for a spring game, have spring practice,” Wiggins said. “It feels more like normal compared to last year, even though it ended with great results. The kids have worked hard throughout spring training, and they worked really hard in the weight room starting back in January.”
