MONROE, La. — The Class 2A Ferriday High School Trojans football team took the field Saturday afternoon for a spring game against the soon-to-be Class 3A Wossman High School Wildcats.

And while the Trojans played without their starting quarterback and did not get into the end zone, there were some areas that head coach Cleothis Cummings III were pleased with on both sides of the ball.

“Offensively, Dominique Jackson and Malik Hampton did a good job running the ball. They ran the ball pretty well,” Cummings said. “We’re young up front, so you can expect some miscues.”

Six-foot-eight and sophomore-to-be Dare’ Rosenthal played both sides of the ball. Cummings said Rosenthal at times struggled against Wossman’s defense, but when he played on the defensive line, he was hard to block.

“Offensively, we allowed some gaps. Defensively, he put a lot of pressure on them,” Cummings said. He added that the Trojans’ defense as a whole was very impressive – especially considering the talent level on Wossman’s offense.

Among those who stood out on that side of the ball were defensive back David Scott, Jared Scott and linebacker Sammy Johnson, who Cummings said made a lot of plays at his position.

“Defensively, the future’s pretty bright for our team,” Cummings said. “We faced two of the top athletes in the state in a Louisiana Tech commit and an LSU commit. They only scored one time and that was in the red zone at the 1-yard line. We held our own against a larger school with much more talent we did.”

There was one noticeable absence on offense for the Trojans. Ferriday had to go without starting quarterback Ronald Williams, who missed the game due to a death in the family. So Cummings went to someone he said had never played quarterback before — J’Shon Foster.

“I thought we played well. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to score. He moved the ball well. He’s a good kid and a good teammate,” Cummings said. “We missed Ronald at quarterback.”

Another thing that Ferriday did not have to deal with was the weather – whether it be rain, wind or high humidity.

“I think we handled ourselves pretty good. It was overcast at first, but then the sun peeked through. It was a pretty positive scrimmage,” Cummings said.