Vinton to take on Merryville in scrimmage

In their final preseason warmup for the 2010 season, the Merryville Panthers will take on the Vinton Lions in the DeQuincy jamboree today at 6 p.m. at Dalton Faircloth Stadium.

Both squads will look to improve from last week's scrimmages in a real game situation in the jamboree game.

"We are going to try to execute a little bit better offensively than we did against Rosepine in the scrimmage," said Panthers' head coach Mark Delanely. "Defensively, we need to line up correctly and make tackles."

For the Lions, they will look to build on a good defensive effort while strengthening on the offensive side of the ball.

"We had a pretty good scrimmage against Oakdale defensively," said Vinton head coach Wendell LeJeune. "We made some mistakes. We gave up two long passes, but that's about it. Their guys just made some good plays.”

The Merryville coaching staff will get a dress rehearsal in a game situation.

"It gives us a game time situation with my coaching staff," said Delanely. "This will be the first time we will be together in a game where people will have to go in a box and people on the field. It will give us a practice run of what's coming up in the near future. "

The jamboree will include two 12 minute halves that will include the kickoffs at the beginning of each half.

The Lions will look to refine their passing game in the jamboree against the Panthers.

"No doubt that we are going to work on our passing game," said LeJeune. "We have to be able to throw the ball to open up the running game. If they are able to stack up and stop the running game, we are in trouble. We need to be able to throw the ball 20-to-25 times in a game and make those guys spread out a little bit so we can have some natural lanes to run through."

The Lions will operate mostly out of the shotgun which will give the Panthers a good look at what they could see later on in the regular season.

"They like to run the stretches and speed sweeps," said Delaney. "It will give us a look. I hadn't seen that formation this year, and not too many times last year. It will prep us for the future as far as to teams that run an open offense out of shotgun."

The Panthers will look to work on their passing game as well as pass protection for the quarterback.

"I'm wanting to see if we can throw the ball and catch the ball a little bit better," Delaney said. "I think our quarterbacks are making the right reads, we just have to execute and bring the ball down. We also have to give time for our quarterback to throw. (Another) thing I'm looking for is to have better pass protection against Vinton."

The Panthers and the Lions will be the first of two jamboree games on Thursday. DeQuincy will take on the Sulphur junior varsity following the first game.