El Dorado downed Ouachita Christian School 23-11 Friday afternoon in the championship game of the Wildcat 7-on-7 Tournament, which was played at the high school.
Sophomore P.J. Denkins intercepted a pass to seal the victory.
“Great effort, it’s hot out here. To go through an entire day of 7-on-7, our guys continued to compete all-day long, never complained. We got better. We improved through the day. I was proud of their effort,” said El Dorado coach Steven Jones.
Steven Tollette caught a pair of touchdown passes from junior quarterback Eli Shepherd and Devunte Kidd snagged one in the championship game.
“Defensively, I was real proud. I kind of looked at the scores as we went through the day and saw there weren’t being a lot of points put up. That’s a good sign,” said Jones. “The defense is really moving around, being aggressive out there and doing a good job of flying to the football. Everything is coming together on that side of the ball.
“Offensively, I’m proud that we continue to get better there as well. We were in a couple different personnels today so we had a lot of different people on the field. We had a lot of guys catch passes. We had tight end, fullback guys on the field some and we were in four-wide at times. We were really able to do more than we have so far this summer.”
The Wildcats beat Warren 30-16 in the semifinals. El Dorado’s JV team beat Monticello 30-28 before falling to Ouachita Christian 28-7 in the other semifinal.
OCS opened tournament play with a hard-fought 27-20 win over Smackover. Warren downed Crossett 6-0.
Shepherd and sophomore Sharmon Rester alternated at quarterback during the morning session.
“They split reps with varsity throughout the day. Eli got the majority of reps in the afternoon part of it. Both of them did really well. Both of them definitely improved today. Both still have a lot to work on, but both of those guys got better today,” said Jones, who said his JV team performed well.
“The JV team competed great. They were right there at the end to finish up and play in the championship game almost. For those guys to fight back, they had a great day, too. We had a lot of kids moving around, getting a lot of good reps. I’m just proud of all of them.”
El Dorado fed players from each of the schools. A nice crowd of spectators looked on despite the hot weather.
“We didn’t have as many teams as we normally do. But we were able to put it all together,” Jones said. “I appreciate all the people behind the scenes that helped us out with all the food and the hydration station and the donations. We were able to put this on because of that. I appreciate all the help.”
El Dorado will participate in a team camp at Hot Springs next Wednesday.
“That’s a padded camp. It will be 11-on-11,” said Jones. “We’re looking forward to some good competition at that, just trying to build on what we did this week and keep putting the pieces together as we move forward.”