North Stanly High School hosted its third annual community night on Tuesday at the Comets home stadium in New London.

North Stanly welcomed the South Rowan Raiders and the East Montgomery Eagles for the 7-on-7 scrimmage this year.

The 7-on-7 scrimmage event allowed coaches to assess their teams strengths and weaknesses for the upcoming season. The noncontact games highlighted the teams passing skills most of all.

On the field I saw three teams that were getting ready for the season, said North head coach Scott Crisco of the scrimmages. This is our last chance to really work on our passing game.

David Yow, head coach of South Rowan, noted the event allowed him to test out his three potential starting quarterbacks against strong competition.

It was very well ran, said Yow. We got a lot of good competition so that was something we were looking forward to.

Anytime we get a chance to compete against other people we can see what we need to work on, he added.

While coaches took notes for the upcoming season, the event also, as the name suggests, provided an outing to foster the community Comet pride.

I saw a lot of community involvement (tonight), a lot of the youth here which is why we put this on. For our football youth, said Crisco.

The community night brings together Comets of all ages. The event invites the North Stanly youth football team and cheerleaders out to meet their high school counterparts.

What we are trying to do is get our youth league involved with our high school, said Todd Helms, president of youth football and defensive coach for the high school team. We feel like if we can establish a good foundation from the youth league, our high school will benefit.

He shares his presidential duties with his wife, Jennie.

Jennie noted more than 50 youth football players and cheerleaders attended on Tuesday to meet and greet with the high school players and cheerleading squad.

The youth loves it and we had good numbers come out, said Jennie Helms. They all get their little T-shirts signed. So theyre very excited about it.

Investing time with events for the youth, such as community night and the youth football minicamp last week, has proved successful in bringing more youth to the programs.

We also see a lot of people from outside our area trying to get into our district because of how were running it, said Todd Helms. As long as were producing a beneficial, positive attitude then everybody comes this way.

In the last few years the youth leagues have blossomed as a reaction to how the programs are run, Todd Helms said.

Our cheer has absolutely exploded, he said. Several years ago cheer was really down so weve tried to merge that back together and its just taken off.

The youth programs range from rising kindergarteners to sixth-graders. According to Todd Helms, the youth football coaches begin introducing the youth to the same plays the high school uses, establishing a strong foundation at a younger age.

Even our youth league coaches are running the same offenses and defenses that were running so that whenever they get to the high school level the terminology is already there, he said.

The North Stanly youth football and cheerleading hosted its second annual powderpuff game on Saturday night at the high school stadium. Look for more coverage of the game in a future edition of the SNAP.

To submit story ideas, contact Karlen Lambert at karlen@stanlynewspress.com or (704)982-2121 ext. 21.

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Comets' youth, high school squads converge - Stanly News & Press