Football Preseason Scrimmage: Bringewatt Threw 2 TD Passes to Tight End O'Malley

The Summit High School football team continued their preseason slate Saturday morning, competing in a scrimmage with neighbor Chatham at Metro Homes Field in Summit.

The scrimmage gave the Hilltoppers a chance to run plays and try schemes against an opponent for the second time in 2010, two weeks before the team opens the regular season.

"I thought we were very aggressive," head coach John Liberato said. "Pete Badgley really led us in this one. We started a little slow, but his running and tackling really got us going."

Since this was not a "game scrimmage," the scoreboard was off and the teams worked together to practice all aspects of what will happen in a real game. The teams started by practicing special teams play, including field goals and punts. That was followed by the varsity squads alternating series' of plays down the field before the junior varsity for each side did the same.

While the varsity squads were still on the field, Summit's play was highlighted by two touchdown passes from quarterback Ryan Bringewatt to tight end Ryan O'Malley. Summit, however, was led by its defense, which was hitting hard from the start and didn't let up.

"Our tenacity was great today," Liberato said. "We had really good blocking, and we ran hard on offense and hit hard defensively."

However, with the calendar still reading August, all teams in the state still have some fine tuning to do before the regular season begins.

"We have to improve our mental mistakes," Liberato said. "We have a young team, but we have to learn from the things we did today."

Summit opened the preseason schedule Aug. 24 in a scrimmage that featured Shore Regional, Bloomfield, and Caldwell, as well.

"We played better today than in the first scrimmage," Liberato said. "We played better in all three aspects of the game. Offense, defense, and special teams are all improving at this point."

Summit will finish their exhibition season with a scrimmage at Lakeland on Thursday at 5 p.m. The team that graduated 25 seniors will put their 12-game winning streak on the line in the season opener, Saturday, Sept. 11 against Voorhees at home at 1 p.m.