The DeKalb County High School Tigers football team has had to deal with some hot and steamy weather during their summer practice period. High heat and high humidity make for some tough going as the young team scrimmages and gets in shape. But the team took a break from the grueling grind last week, for some more suitable summertime activities. Who wouldn’t want a practice that consisted of water balloon fights and watermelon?

It was the last practice of their June session, before the team has to take a two-week break. The team will be back on the practice field on July 12, when they will step things up in preparation of the upcoming season. The team was scheduled to have a seven on seven practice with visiting Gordonsville, but Gordonsville had to cancel.

“We wrapped things up with a normal day of practice, with some fun there at the end,” Head Coach Steve Trapp told the Smithville Review. “We’ve had a really good June, especially this last week. It’s been a drama free June. It’s really critical for the eighth graders coming up, and getting them established on how we do things.”

Coach Trapp said that the summer practice has been valuable to the inexperienced players as well as the veterans. “We had a few seven on sevens at Shelbyville with our JV guys, and then another day with our varsity players. I felt our guys competed well. For JV, it’s a learning experience, but our varsity was in the top six at the end of the day. So, we won a lot more than we lost. I really enjoyed the way they competed, how they showed up and went to work all summer so far. It’s a two-week break that is well deserved, but when we get back on July 12 we’ll really be in the grind.”

When asked how his team is shaping up, Coach Trapp had high praise. “I really like our team,” he said. “It’s a close knit bunch, and we’ve got a lot of guys back in the right areas from last year’s team. We lost some quality players from last year, but we’ve got some guys that have worked extremely hard and filling those roles in a great way. I’m just excited for these guys to be able to get out there in full pads when we get back, go through our scrimmage season, our jamboree, and hopefully kick the season off in late August.”

With Axel Aldino moving on to college, Coach Trapp was asked who the new QB would be. “Briz Trapp is going to be our quarterback. He kind of fits our tradition of getting a quarterback that starts young. Aldino did it, and by the time they’re through, they are really special for our program and our town. We’re starting back with another young guy, but we have some great pieces that are around him.”

“We’re really solid up front,” Trapp continued. “We’ve got four returning offensive linemen. We’ve got Isaac Knowles, our lone returner in the receiver group, but he’s a special talent out there for us.”

“Then, our running back situation with Nathaniel Crook and Colby Barnes, I mean we have a lot of weapons around. We just need to make sure we make good snaps and get the ball to the right people.”

“Defensively, we’ve returned a good core for our front seven. We’re solid at linebacker, we’ve got a deep defensive line rotation, and we got our two safeties back, Brady Hale and Isaac Knowles. Then we’ve got two new corners out there with Noah Gottlied and John Ellis.”

“We don’t have but about 45 players, but we do have a lot of guys that can play,” Coach Trapp said. There won’t be a lot of guys going both ways continuously, with a lot of people getting to rotate in, and we have a lot of guys filling roles on special teams. I’m just really excited about what this bunch can contribute and get done this fall.”

The team will be back on the practice field in a couple of weeks, donning pads and stepping up their practice in preparation for the upcoming season.