PHOTO BY GABE WOLF Badgers prepare for kickoff Lampasas' final preseason tune-up takes place this evening at 6:30 p.m. when Glen Rose visits Badger Field for a scrimmage. Six-man football is commonly associated with the passing game, but not in Lometa.

Lometa High School head coach Wendell Bradley is a self-proclaimed "old school" guy, meaning he wants to see his squad primarily advance the ball on the ground.

In a game where scoring lots of points through the air is typical, Bradley has a tendency to play a smash-mouth style of offense; at least, until someone can stop him.

"If a team would just let us [run the ball] then we'll just do that," Bradley said. "If one play is successful and the other team is not going to adjust to stop it, then we just might run that same play over and over and over until they do stop it."

Last Saturday morning, the Hornets took part in a three-way scrimmage hosted by former Division 1 District 16 rival Cherokee High School, with Cedar Park Summit Christian Academy also participating.

Bradley was pleased with his team's overall play, but definitely had small concerns afterward about his team's up-and-down play.

"When we looked good, we looked real good, and when we looked bad, we looked real bad," Bradley said.

"We had several miscues, fumbles and problem snaps that you never like to see, but if we're going to have them, let's get them out of the way right off and get those things corrected."

The Hornets scored twice during the scrimmage with one touchdown coming on a 55-yard run by Eric Belyeu, thanks in part to some strong blocking that put a smile on the run-hungry coach's face during the review of video footage from the scrimmage.

"We watched the film, and there were seven kids knocked to the ground," Bradley said. "In sixman, there's only six on the field, so that means somebody got knocked down twice. We did a fantastic job blocking on that play."

Lometa also got into the end zone on a 15-yard touchdown pass from David Cruz to Scotty Hernandez.

Defensively, the Hornets were on point, giving up just one first down over approximately 30 plays, according to Bradley.

Even after the impressive defensive stand, much of the focus during their practices after the scrimmage was geared toward improving the Hornet defense, especially at linebacker, while also attempting to expand and fine-tune the offensive playbook.

"We really didn't change a whole lot after the scrimmage that we planned on doing," Bradley said. "We didn't look at the scrimmage and say, 'Oh no, we're in trouble.' We just knew there were some things that we had to address."

Next up for the Hornets is a road scrimmage against Rochelle High School today at 5 p.m. before they open the regular season schedule with a zero week contest against the Covington Owls on Aug. 29.