Eisenhower’s Tucker Lindell grabs the flag of Ryan Chambers during Eisenhower’s annual Blue & Gold intrasquad scrimmage Friday. Times Observer photo by Steve Younger

The Eisenhower football team closed out its spring minicamp by holding the 18th annual Blue & Gold, intrasquad game on Friday evening.

The Knights come into the offseason needing to replace some outstanding players lost to graduation from last year’s undefeated region championship team.

Head coach Jim Penley had some questions answered last night.

“I thought it was a good game, pretty evenly matched,” he said. “The Blue team, consisting of the seniors and freshman players, jumped out to a 24-point lead before the Gold team (juniors and sophomores) mounted a comeback to make the score 24-14.”

The 28 players who attended the minicamp used the Blue-Gold game as an opportunity to show the coaches that they’ve improved. For the new players, it was just an opportunity to show the coaches that they can play on the high school level.

Penley was impressed with what he saw.

“A number of players definitely made some huge strides in the last couple of months, and I was super impressed with all of our freshman that are moving up,” he said. “There was some outstanding plays turned in by all of them.”

When asked about his returning players, Penley added, “I think most of our players that are returning starters played very steady. I was not disappointed in any of their efforts.”

The Blue team’s win evened the series 9-9.

Sometimes a season like the one last year’s team had would make a coach nervous about losing players to graduation, but Penley is excited with what he saw during the game.

“Overall, I thought the effort was outstanding from everyone,” he said. “I’m very excited to get to work here in the next couple weeks.”