Sage impressive in scrimmage

First-year Coach Abram Booty was not planning to break out the new uniforms for the Sage Hill School football team for Friday night’s scrimmage against visiting Santa Ana Century.

Booty was going to have the Lightning wear their practice jerseys, but those plans changed. Sage Hill wore the new uniforms, which are mostly black with green highlights on the sleeve and white numbers. The helmets are now silver, instead of white as they were last year.

“The kids have been asking all week, ‘Can we do it, can we do it?’ so we just made the call,” Booty said. “They look great, don’t you think? I think it’s a good look for our boys. They look sharp.”

The new uniforms seemed fitting to open a new era. The Lightning players themselves looked good in the scrimmage, which featured four 15-minute quarters and a running clock. They are ready to start the regular season Thursday, when they play another Santa Ana school, Calvary Chapel, at Jim Scott Stadium.

Sage Hill, coming off a 3-7 season a year ago, took it to a Century squad that finished 1-9 last season. Though no official score was kept, the Lightning scored five touchdowns while holding the Centurions scoreless.

Sage Hill showed off a passing game led by junior quarterback Caden Sheetz, who completed 13 of 18 passes for 264 yards, three touchdowns and one interception.

Sheetz threw a pair of touchdown passes to fellow junior Jacob Copeland, a transfer from Southlake Carroll High in Texas who is Booty’s nephew. On the first scoring connection, for 38 yards, Copeland caught the ball at the 10-yard line late in the first half and broke a tackle before scoring.

Sheetz then found Copeland over the middle for a 70-yard completion on the first play of the second half. Copeland finished with three catches for 139 yards, including the two touchdowns.

Jake Fisher had four catches for 73 yards for Sage Hill, David Dewey had two grabs for 18 yards and Miles McCord also caught a 20-yard touchdown pass, leaping at the goal line to snag it. The Lightning ran the ball just 10 times, but senior back DJ Henry had have a 52-yard touchdown run up the middle in the fourth quarter.

Dewey also had an interception, one of two Sage turnovers forced on the night. The other one came on Century’s third possession of the scrimmage, when senior linebacker Alfonso Corona poked the ball away from the running back and freshman linebacker Conner Hatzenbuehler ran it in from about 10 yards out.

Century did not record a first down in the first half of the scrimmage. Sage Hill’s linemen Brett Jordan, Robert Leigh, Barry Valdez and Henry were routinely able to get into the backfield to disrupt Century’s offense.

“Our defense showed up tonight,” Booty said. “They played very old-school, hard nose football under [former USC star] Mike Salmon, the defensive coordinator. If we play defense like that, we’ve got a chance to have a good year.”

By the fourth quarter of the scrimmage, Sheetz was able to take a seat as backup quarterback William Leong came in for a couple of series. Leong was victimized by a couple of dropped passes, which Booty knows that the Lightning will have to clean up before facing Calvary Chapel.

“We dropped too many footballs,” Booty said. “We had two or three drops for big plays, so we’ve got to focus on working on our concentration out wide. We’re going to play some very competitive teams, so we’ll find out soon how much we really need to work on some things. But I’m proud of the way that the boys played. This was a great start to the new football season for us. I couldn’t be any happier.”

Booty was also happy that the Lightning, who have most of their starters playing both ways, did not suffer any major injuries during Friday’s scrimmage.