Injuries mar Oak Ridge's Navy-Gold scrimmage

Oak Ridge High held its annual Navy/Gold football scrimmage on Friday and it had a lot of good and some not-so-good moments. The number-one goal of scrimmages is to come out of them injury-free. That wasn't the case for the Trojans, as they lost two of their top players in a matter of five plays. Senior running back Jasen Womack went down with an ankle sprain on the second or third play from scrimmage and later in the same drive, defensive end Javon Joseph also went down with a sprained ankle. On top of that, Oak Ridge had close to 10 players who didn't even suit up for the game, so early on this season, the Trojans are banged up. "The fact that we saw two of our better guys go down in the first drive wasn't good," Oak Ridge coach Casey Taylor said. "The day as a whole was good, though. People got to see all seven of our teams, including the youth football teams and then we also had the girls' flag football teams out there so it was a good day to celebrate football." Taylor didn't think the injuries were serious. If they players were not 100 percent by Wednesday, Taylor said he would hold them out of their scrimmage against Lincoln of Stockton on Friday. "We'll find out where they're at but obviously we're going to play on the side of caution," Taylor said. "I think both guys should be OK by our first game. The coaches were kind of bummed out about the injuries, but it could be a blessing in disguise, as we can look at our depth and maybe we can find some new guys who can help us." Aside from the injuries, Taylor said he saw a lot of good things. "I felt we ran the ball well and our passing was solid," Taylor said. "I thought we tackled well on defense too." On a team that's got two players auditioning to be the starting quarterback, Taylor liked what he saw out of both Luke Taber and Nick Johnson. "I thought both quarterbacks played well," Taylor said. "They took care of the ball and they also threw it well. I know that Braxton Martinez caught a nice long ball from Luke Taber. "I thought that Tyler Andujar came in and ran the ball well after Jasen (Womack) got hurt. The line had a couple miscues, but other than that they did well." On Friday, Oak Ridge plays host to Lincoln of Stockton during a scrimmage. Freshmen play at 3 p.m., junior varsity at 5 p.m. and varsity at 7 p.m.