El Dorado’s football program is coming off a productive week with a team camp and a pair of 7-on-7 tournaments. The Wildcats won the Speed Demon Shootout on the campus of Northwestern State (La.) on Friday and finished second in the OBU 7-on-7 tournament on Wednesday.
Monday, El Dorado will host its own Wildcat 7-on-7 Tournament at the high school.
“It was a great week, a ton of reps. I bet our guys are tired,” El Dorado coach Steven Jones said on Saturday. “They’re taking a break during the weekend, getting ready to get back going on Monday. We get eight competitive days in the summer. We’re going to be doing the majority of those in June. In July, we’ll back off the camp stuff and get our feet back underneath us and get ready to go in August.”
The Wildcat 7-on-7 Tournament will feature three pools of four teams.
Pool A will feature El Dorado, Warren, White Hall and Arkadelphia. Smackover, Ouachita Christian, Drew Central and Haynesville will comprise Pool B with Pool C consisting of El Dorado JV, Junction City, Harmony Grove and Ouachita Christian JV.
The tournament, which wasn’t held last year due to COVID, traditionally was played at both the high school and Memorial Stadium. This year the event will be held at the high school only.
“We have 12 teams. We’ll have four fields. The reason it’s been split in the past was there was only room to play three fields at the high school,” Jones explained. “Now with the new facility, we have four. We have a fully covered turf field with shade all day long and we’re going to take advantage of it.”
After missing a year, Jones said the tournament might’ve grown.
“I think we had more interest than I expected,” he said. “We’re looking forward to hosting it, looking forward to good competition. Just to be able to have it helps us as a staff evaluate who we have and where we’re headed.
“We want to compete in everything we do. But the point of these 7-on-7 deals is to get everybody reps and just evaluate our guys and see what they can do headed into the fall.”
The tournament kicks off at 9:30 a.m. The finals are scheduled for 3 p.m.