OOLTEWAH — The Polk County Wildcats took another step toward their Aug. 17 football opener with a scrimmage session against East Hamilton Tuesday.

“I think we made some improvements in some areas. We showed a little bit of fight. East Hamilton is not a bad football team. We did have three or four major mistakes, otherwise it might have been a little bit different. We showed some excitement. We showed some fight defensively and got after them a little bit on offense,” said Polk coach Derrick Davis.

The ’Cats opened the eight-play format strong with a long touchdown run on the second play from scrimmage. Polk had a chance to go up 2-0 after switching to down-and-distance on its next possession, but missed the opportunity on a fumble in the open field recovered by the Hurricanes.

Defensively, the Wildcats held East Hamilton out of the end zone on its first eight-play series and forced a field goal on the Hurricanes’ second possession.

The Wildcats’ success faded a bit from there and they were forced to punt on their next two possessions. East Hamilton scored twice more with TD passes.

“They kind of stuffed us a couple of series after that. We fumbled going in or we would have been up by two. We’ve got to protect the football. Then, when we get stuffed on first down it is hard to recover and we got a penalty that didn’t help. When they backed us up second-and-long or third-and-long, that is not our type of offense. That put us in a bad situation,” said Davis.

The rest of the evening session was spent working on situational football including work inside the red zone.

“This was a very good scrimmage as far as situational stuff. We had our special teams in some somewhat live situations up to point of contact. Overall, it was a good scrimmage,” the Polk leader stated.

“This scrimmage was very good for us as far as helping get us ready for our opening few games, that is for sure.”

The Wildcats still have a long week ahead of them with yet another scrimmage Thursday in Loudon before making a quick turnaround for Friday’s jamboree.

“We’ve got one more this week then the jamboree and then it’s for real. I think we are going to be able to walk out of here today without any serious injuries. That is another positive. You are so scared this time of year about getting injuries,” said Davis.