Northside hosts first spring football game under new head coach Ben Bailey

WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — There’s nothing like the sound of pads clashing, marching bands playing, and whistles blowing on a Friday night.

Most of the time you have to wait until the fall to enjoy high school football, but new head coach Ben Bailey and the Northside Eagles brought a sneak peak of the upcoming season to the MAC last Friday night.

There were two goals for Bailey in the game: Stay healthy and work on conditioning.

“Spring practice went well, we were pretty healthy,” Bailey said. “To finish the spring game being healthy I feel pretty good.”

Bailey also wanted to get conditioning up to prepare his team for an up-tempo offense next season.

“Offensively we’re going to try to pick up the tempo a little bit,” Bailey said. “Naturally coming into spring after other sports or guys maybe not playing sports at all we got a little fatigue later in the scrimmage which we’ll work on that. But we’re going to try to pick up the tempo and keep people on their heels.”

One thing that was accomplished during the spring, aside from the previous goals, is seeing who will lead the team next year — on and off the field.

There are several contributors on both sides of the ball who will be graduating in the next week. Michael McClendon, leading rusher from last season, will be gone. Duke McClinton, D’shawn Hooten and Brandon Wilson Jr. will all leave holes in the receiving core. Not to mention Tyler Williams and Isaiah Harvey, who were staples in the Eagles’ defense last year.

“We’ve still got some leaders and some guys who’ve played a lot of football for Northside,” Bailey said. “I’m looking forward to those guys stepping up, but we’ve got some guys who don’t have a lot of experience that we’re expecting a lot out of as well so we’re excited.”

One person with high expectations is upcoming senior quarterback Damien Dee.

Dee and DJ Hudson pretty much split the reps at quarterback last year, but following Hudson’s relocation to Peach County, Dee has sole command over the position.

“Damien Dee, I feel really good about him,” Bailey said. “He was at every quarterback meeting in the mornings that we did at 6 a.m. starting in February. He’s been committed and he’s grown every practice. We’re really excited about what he’s going to do.”

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