Heading into Friday night’s scrimmage against Wicksburg, Zion Chapel head coach Bradley Bowers knew that the game would be a learning experience for his young team. Despite a 28-0 loss, Bowers feels that he learned a lot about his squad in the first four quarters as the team’s head coach.

“One of the reasons we wanted to play this game is to see where we stood. When you don’t have big numbers it’s hard to tell,” the first-year head coach said. “We still have a lot of things to work on but we also saw a lot of good things.”

Zion Chapel surrendered a 54-yard touchdown run on just the second play of the game, but the defense settled down which was a pleasant sign for Bowers.

“I think we have just one returning starter on defense so we were really proud of the way they played. I think we were really physical and that is something I really wanted to see, our kids showed they could be physical and that’s something you can build on.”

Zion Chapel’s offense struggled to move the football for the majority of the game but quarterback Ethan Deal broke off a 15-yard run to set the Rebels up at the 5-yard line in the fourth quarter. Wicksburg’s defense tightened however and spoiled Zion Chapel’s lone scoring opportunity.

“We felt like the offense would start off a little slow. We’ve got several younger guys starting on offense right now but we found a couple of guys that we feel like are going to help as the season goes along,” said Bowers. “We’ll take a look at what we need to work on and keep on working.”

Zion Chapel opens the regular season next week on the road against G.W. Long.