CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KFVS) – Varsity starters and freshman alike, taking their first few steps on the field, everyone got reps at the Cape Central Contact Camp.
Thursday’s camp pitted host Cape Central against Fredericktown, Dexter and Perryville, all in a round-robin where schools played offense and defense against each other.
Tigers head coach Kent Gibbs spoke after the camp, reflecting on the importance of getting practice reps during the summer, “I think the big thing is getting everybody on film. Giving our old kids, young kids for a lot of us — our guys, the young guys kind of our first chance we’ve had to put them together. So I think it’s very valuable here at the end of our first phase of our workouts to get that on film, and get evaluating and go from there.”
Dexter, Fredericktown and Perryville all want to use the summer camp to build on strong 2024 campaigns.
The Bearcats reached a state quarterfinal last season. Despite losing a lot of talent on offense, head coach Chad Jamerson was in an optimistic mood.
He’s grateful to have gotten real reps against outside competition, “Overall it’s a positive. Any time you’re getting to play football and you’re executing well and you’re doing things right, I think it’s a positive for us. And we’re going to walk away with a smile and know that we got better today”
The good mood is shared by Fredericktown junior Maddox Knepper, “A lot of these schools are a lot bigger than us too, especially Cape. And Perryville’s a class higher. So, if we can hang with these guys, we can hang with anybody in our schedule I feel like. It’s definitely a big confidence booster today, getting to hang with some of these guys.”
Perryville will face Fredericktown to open the year. The Pirates’ football team, like their baseball team, cannot use their home field right now because of storm damage.
As a result, the Pirates had to move practices to their youth football field in the Perry Park Center.
“It’s made some challenges for sure. All our supplies are kind of in different locations,” head coach Brent Roth said. “It’s been a little stressful but as far as football goes, (if) you’ve got an open field and got some grass somewhere, we can teach the game. It shouldn’t affect us anything as far as winning football games.”
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1263871562410838&set=a.499537155510953
All four programs will take time off in early July, for Independence Day and to give their athletes a chance to heal and recover after several weeks of summer practices.
Copyright 2025 KFVS. All rights reserved.