By Angie Ledbetter
The North Delta Green Wave ended its spring football with a scrimmage game against Hebron Christian on Friday at home.

The Green Wave lost 42-30. The Wave, under new head coach Lance Thomas, consisted of 32 players showcasing 10 seniors. Leading the team was senior quarterback Bateman Greenlee.

The two and a half hour scrimmage started with 10 plays on the offense and defense from the 30-yard line. After each team finished that session, they played 10 goal line plays from the ten yard line.

Senior Hunter West started the scoring for the Wave when taking the ball into the endzone after a handoff from Greenlee. Greenlee scored three times in the middle from the two yard line. To finish off the scoring for the Wave was senior Blane Joyner.

Hebron and Desoto are picked to win the north this fall by the pollsters. Hebron showcased its athletic quarterback JoJo Pearson and running back  Carlton Clay.

After the game, Thomas told the team about critical errors.

“If you take away the two plays where they broke coverage and the inside trap, then if we play this team in a four quarter game, it will not be fun for them because we kept the ball away from them the whole game,” Thomas said.  “There probably wasn’t a time where we didn’t get a first down. We got plus yards every time. The fullbacks did a good job. Teams are not going to be able to stop the run on us so they are going to spread us out.”

Thomas said the team got behind when it was tricked on two plays.

“You can’t do that,” he said. “Everybody got to play a lot of football today and that is exactly what I wanted.”

Thomas took the blame for not expecting a halfback pass.

“We didn’t go over it,” he said. “I didn’t think that he would run it but he did.”

Thomas told the team they would be the ones winning the north this fall.

“Spring practice has gone good for us,” said Thomas.  “We have had a lot of guys out there. The effort and attitudes have been good.”

North Delta has a lot of young players who are sophomores. Thomas also said the secondary is young.

“We just have to work on some basic technique with them,” he said. “Actually, our coverage wasn’t that bad. Our pursuit to the ball wasn’t that bad today. We just got beat on one trick play and one play we strung the quarterback all the way to the sideline and just broke our coverage. He is a senior quarterback and he burned us.”

The biggest area of improvement needed coming out of this game is fundamentals, according to Thomas.

“There were small things and corners staying in their corners and not breaking their coverage,” he said. “The quarterback, Bateman Greenlee is a senior who is very physical.  He is a good quarterback and a good team leader. Our young quarterback, sophomore Bryan Nickle, is very athletic and he is going to help us in a lot of different ways.”

The team was without  top tailback and starting free safety Tres Brasell, a sophomore.