Pads popping at Smithville team camp

Dion Clisso/PrepsKC

By Dion Clisso PrepsKC Managing Editor
Posted: June 5, 2012 - 7:29 AM



Several teams in the Metro wasted little time putting on the pads in the first week of summer workouts. Smithville, St. James, Lawson, Pleasant Hill and Richmond broke out the pads and competed against different color jerseys at last weekend’s Smithville team camp.
The camp brought the five teams together for two days of controlled full-contact scrimmages that had coaches and players chomping at the bit for the start of the 2012 season.
Even though there was an injury here and there and many of the young players were still finding their way the camp was a success for all involved. The chance to get live reps for all players was something that the coaches really liked about this early season contact camp.
“You always love to get contact camp early in the summer to see what you’ve got,” St. James coach Tom Radke said. “We had camp earlier this week with our guys to learn all of our stuff.
“The best part is we get to see some competition we don’t get to see. When I was at St. Pius I got to play against some of these teams and it is always good to get back to my roots and where I started. Missouri schools do it right, they get a lot of extra practices and now we are catching up. It’s the same size schools and it’s a lot of fun.”
St. James won’t see any of these teams during the season but for Smithville and Pleasant Hill the scrimmage was a preview of the first week of the regular season.
Smithville senior quarterback Cory Marmet said the camp was a good chance to just go and be physical with some other teams.
“It’s nice to get out and see guys in full pads for the first time,” Marmet said. “You get to see who is going to be the ones and twos.
“Right now we are just trying to get physical, hitting and hitting hard. We are trying to learn the plays because we have a lot new people this year. We need to work on some of the reps with some of the players and just learning our stuff better.”
Dion Clisso is the Managing Editor of PrepsKC. To reach him send email to dion@prepskc.com.