Cleburne Times-Review, Cleburne, TX

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May 28, 2009

Finishing up strong

By Matt Tasler/sports@trcle.com

The Cleburne Yellow Jackets finished off spring practice with their annual spring game on Thursday afternoon at the Marshall Young Track Complex at Cleburne High School.

Cleburne head coach Phil Young said he is counting on the upperclassmen to carry the load.

“We’re going to rely on our seniors big,” Young said. “As coaches, we really want this senior class to be a great one and I think it can. The seniors will dictate where the team goes, like it does every year. A great senior class that’s unselfish and loves each other and plays for family will do great things. If you’re not, you won’t. That’s the thing about it. This is the time for the seniors to mature up. They get to kind of dictate the personality of the team.”

After he missed the spring while battling Guillain-Barre Syndrome, Jackets defensive coordinator Keith Ivy was in attendance at the spring game.

“It was kind of emotional for some of them.” Young said. “Some of these guys are so close to him and they just love him so much. We all love him so much and I know it just tears him up for him not to be out here. It was really good after six weeks of not seeing his face to see him out here smiling.”

Young said it’s hard to simulate the energy that Ivy brings to the Jackets in workouts.

“You lose a big part.” Young said. “You don’t replace a Keith Ivy. We have a great coaching staff that stepped up and did a great job this spring in kind of taking his role. We didn’t name anybody defensive coordinator, but we’ve got enough good defensive coaches that they ran it all and they did good. We miss him because he’s such an emotional guy, but we have a good staff that just kind of fills the breach in and says, ‘Let’s go.’ Can’t wait to get him back though.”

Young said the coaches are hoping the players take the momentum gained this spring into the summer workouts, but for the most part, the coaches saw what they expected to see on Thursday.

“We expected some mistakes,” Young said. “Most of those are not effort mistakes. There have been a lot of guys we’ve been impressed with, Bubba Oakes, especially. Bubba Oakes has had a great spring. And John Finnell. Those two guys have worked like warriors, along with Greg Simpson. Those three guys have impressed me more than anybody else. They’re just great leaders for our team. I would line up with those guys any Friday night because they come to play.”

The coaching staff, Young said, was especially impressed with the running of Cody Hicks.

“Cody ran hard and the line blocked good,” Young said. “The receivers caught the ball, the line blocked hard. We’re missing L.J. Holmes because he got hurt the other day, but Cody stepped right in and did a nice job with it. We’re looking for good things out of Cody.”

After taking a week off, the Jackets will resume offseason work on June 8.

“It’s one of those things where you hope the momentum continues,” Young said. “We’ll take a week off, but then here we go. We just hope the momentum continues, the leadership continues. They’ll be anticipating around mid-July getting the pads on.”

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