The Wildkittens were down on themselves a bit after losing 8-6 to Cross County in the opening game of a two-team scrimmage on Tuesday, Aug. 28. But they came back out a little later and held on for a 16-14 win in the second match against Manila to earn a split.

"The boys played tough," head coach Nick Richardson said. "After the first game I took them inside and we had a good talk. I told them to try and learn from our mistakes and to keep playing hard. I think that got them back rolling again."

In the first game, Cross County got on the board first to make it 8-0. The Wildkittens came back on a 46-yard bootleg run by Jimmy Creecy for what turned out to be the final tally after the to make it 8-6, but failed on a two-point attempt.

The Wildkittens lost starters Jason Faulkner, who hurt his back, and Tyler Renshaw to a sprained ankle but both players should be backing the line up for Thursday's season opener against Paragould.

In the second game against Manila, the Wildkittens came back out with a little more fire despite being short a couple of linemen due to injuries in the first game.

Manila took advantage of an early Trumann misstep, intercepting a pass from Creecy and converted on a two-pointer to take an 8-0 lead.

Creecy came back though, connecting with Nathan Maxwell for a 45 yard td pass then ran it in for the two point conversion to tie the game at 8-all.

Manila regained the lead 14-8, but failed on a two-point conversion attempt.

The Wildkittens stormed back scoring on a 53-yard touchdown run by Creecy who again found the end zone, running it in for the conversion to go ahead 16-14.

Richardson said you can expect to see them go for a lot of two point conversions this year.

"We don't really have any kicking," Richardson said. "We're just going to go for it."

Richardson said overall he thought the offense did a good job running and passing the ball, singling out Jimmy Creecy, Nathan Maxwell, Tyler McPherson and Quinton Buchanan's performance on the night.

"I thought we did some good things," Richardson said. "We came out in the spread set which we had been working on. It's all new to us and we're trying to get that down. I thought we had some good points running the ball and some good points throwing the ball."

The only weakness he saw was the line which, he said, still needs some work.

"Our line has got to do a little better," Richardson said. "They did alright."

"Overall, I think we had a good game. We got some positives out of it. We'll learn from it. Manila and Cross County are some pretty good teams. So we've got to play up in our league. We've got to play Paragould, which is a 5A team. So we've got to come prepared."