FINAL TUNE-UP FOR TIGERS

Tahlequah will close preseason play at 7:15 p.m Thursday when it travels to Wagoner to play Wagoner and Hilldale in its final scrimmage. The Tigers scrimmaged at Coweta last week, facing both Coweta and Grove in a three-way. Head coach Brad Gilbert's team was impressive defensively in last week's outing, allowing just one touchdown and forcing four three and outs. The Tigers did allow two long runs. "We need to eliminate the big plays, and there were some things we found on film that need to be corrected," Gilbert said. "We need to continue to build up depth on that side of the ball. We just need to continue being who we are and do what we do." Offensively, Tahlequah finished strong by getting into the end zone on the final play -- a 23-yard touchdown pass from senior quarterback Cayden Aldridge to senior wide receiver Luke Green. Prior to the score, the Tigers had a handful of mistakes which included bad snaps from center that Gilbert hopes to correct this time out. "Our focus all week has been on the offensive side," Gilbert said. "We need to clean it up from the previous scrimmage. We still won't run Cayden and use his abilities right now. Our main thing is to focus on ourselves. We had too many self imposed mistakes with six bad snaps and a holding penalty that negated one of the big runs that we had." Gilbert said the first unit on both sides of the ball will see more time Thursday as the season opener nears. "We're going to limit the amount of plays that some of the backups got last week," he said. "We want to get more of a clear picture of who we're going to go with on Friday night." "This will be more of a game setting," Gilbert added. "There will be some special teams put into place this time. We want to make sure everybody knows their assignments." Tahlequah hosts Fort Gibson at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 1 at Doc Wadley Stadium.

FINAL TUNE-UP FOR TIGERS

Photo Credit: Byron Beers

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