Scotland football prepares for official season practices

LAURINBURG — Official fall season practices are quickly approaching for the Scotland Fighting Scots football team with just one more summer practice scheduled for next Monday morning. The team initially had one more seven on practice with other teams in the area scheduled this past Wednesday but ended up having to cancel it due to the field being drenched in over six inches of rain since last Friday. They previously held these types of practices twice in June and a couple of times earlier in July as they looked to sharpen their game before regular season practices begin next week.

Head Coach Richard Bailey expressed pleasure when discussing how his team has grown since their first seven on seven practice in the middle of June. Both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball have seen plenty of improvement over the past month.

“Offensively what I’ve really liked is we’ve gotten better at running our routes and we’ve gotten more consistent with throwing the ball, which we plan on doing plenty of this year,” Bailey said. “Defensively we have played much better seven on seven defense and are built well in the right areas while looking very athletic, particularly in the secondary and front four.”

Bailey seems to feel good about where his team stands at this point in the later stages of the summer. That being said, he did express some slight concern over the team’s conditioning levels because of the rain cancelling some of their recent practices as well as recently required dead periods by the state resulting in an inconsistent training schedule. This means they will have some work to do when they return to the field next week in order to get game ready.

“I feel pretty good about where we’re at in the summer,” Bailey said. “One thing we will have to do next week when we start official practices is get everybody acclimated and in shape to play.”

They will have to do so quickly if they want to start the season off on the right foot as the team’s first game on Aug. 23 in Dillon will be a pretty serious test if last season or the recent preseason poll are any indication. Dillon went 10-2 with a +256-point differential before losing their second playoff game to the Camden Bulldogs in 2023 and recently was ranked as the best 3A team in South Carolina for 2024.

“I saw yesterday that they were ranked the No.1 3A team in the state of South Carolina in the preseason poll so obviously they’re going to be a challenge,” Bailey said. “They’re a perennial powerhouse and a natural rival being right across the border from us.”

The Fighting Scots are coming off a year where they went 10-3 overall (4-2 against conference foes) and finished 3rd in the 3A/4A Sandhills Conference. They had a superb +198-point differential and two playoff wins before having their season end in a heartbreaking one-point loss to the Northern Nash Knights in the third round of the 3A state playoffs. Based on the statistical dominance of the two clubs from last year, this should be a terrific battle to start the season.

The first official season practice for the Fighting Scots will be next Wednesday, July 31 from 8 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Players must report by 7:30 a.m. and are required to have a current physical completed. There will be free physicals given at Scotland High School from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the new gym.