COVINGTON – The Covington Buccaneers hosted a 7-on-7 scrimmage on Thursday and took a step forward whith improvement was on display against Graham, Tri-Village and Waynesfield-Goshen.

Obviously, what stood out the most was the overall effort given on the field by the Buccs. Yes, there were a few times where effort wasn’t maxed out, but there was a huge amount of improvement compared to the effort given that hurt their performance last Saturday at Northmont.

Defensively, the Buccaneers put forth an outstanding performance with tight coverage and big plays that led to many defensive stops and interceptions in critical situations. The only real apparent negative play was on a short pass in the flat by Tri-Village that resulted into a big gain because the entire unit on the Buccaneer defense didn’t swarm to the football. Outside of that, the relentless effort by the defense was impressive.

Interceptions were made by Garrett Leistner, Jack Blumenstock, Jordan Miller and Sam Helman.

Offensively, Covington gave a relentless effort as well, which led to several huge plays. The Buccaneers moved the ball well on the majority of their possessions and scored many touchdowns, but the biggest things that hurt Covington’s offense were way too many dropped passes – at least five dropped in the end zone.

At this point in the off-season the Buccaneers are way ahead of where they were a year ago, even though the team last year put forth a lot of effort as well. The majority of the players this season have a lot of experience with adverse situations, which is why they are moving forward with their toughness, confidence and improvement in team continuity.

Hopefully this tight group of players continue to push forward with their effort and determination because there is still a lot of areas for improvement before the season opener takes place about one month away.