Defense shines for St. Paul in scrimmage opener

LaGRANGE — Most football coaches believe the defense is usually ahead of the offense in the preseason. If that proves to be true for St. Paul, first-year head coach Chris Doughy is going to be very pleased with his defensive unit in 2024. The Flyers visited Division V Keystone for a practice scrimmage on Saturday. In three sets of 10-play periods, the Flyers forced three turnovers and held the Wildcats to about 100 yards of total offense. "I was really pleased overall with how our defense played," Doughty said. "Three turnovers is great in any game, yet alone 30 plays. That was a big point of emphasis for us, and to see that show up in a scrimmage situation was nice to see." The Flyers are replacing a big senior class from 2023 that had as many as six players with two or three years of starting experience. That meant Saturday was a new situation for about half the starters on each side of the ball. "The big thing was obviously getting our guys some experience against a live opponent for the first time," Doughty said. "We had a lot of guys stepping into varsity positions who are coming off being either rotational guys or junior varsity players. "They are now stepping into full-time starting roles or will play significant varsity time, and seeing them be successful in those positions was neat to see," he added. Sophomore Levi Rospert had an interception and caught two long passes for the Flyers. Junior Nate Sandor paired with senior Jack Stieber to get quite a few carries out of the backfield as well. "We were happy with what we saw from those guys with the limited reps of a practice scrimmage," Doughty said. "Overall, we were happy with what we were able to accomplish with them in the backfield. "And (sophomore) Grant (Kuhnle) is settling into the quarterback role. We're getting things figured out. We essentially have all new wide receivers in there, so we're trying to get timing down and get into a rhythm. But it was a good showing for the first time out." But like most practices or scrimmages, not everything was perfect. Doughty felt his offense was a half of a block, or just one or two blocks, away from several big plays. "Just standard blocking mistakes," he said. "A lot of that is getting communication down and getting kids more comfortable with things, and making adjustments in a scrimmage." Doughty noted that is again an area where many kids yesterday don't make those kinds of adjustments during a JV game like they will need to do on the varsity field this fall. "When a defense doesn't line up like you expect, we have to make an adjustment, and make it correctly," he said. "So we need to work on communication, and our overall technique. Just a lot of fine-tuning and correcting little things." Up next, the Flyers face another perennial contender from Lorain County when they host Elyria Catholic. Action is expected to start at about 6:30 p.m. Friday (Aug. 16) at Contractors Stadium. St. Paul visits Huron in the season opener on Aug. 23. "I would like to see a similar performance with us playing aggressively against a really tough opponent," Doughty said. "We lost that scrimmage to weather last year, so we're looking forward to competing with EC and playing aggressively on both sides of the ball. "If we make mistakes, we want them to be aggressive mistakes, and make sure we're doing that on both sides of the ball."