Eagles, Webb City hook up with Lamar, Seneca in jamboree
Aug. 18—With a week left before the start of the 2023 high school football season, teams across the state got a chance to suit up and face other schools across the line of scrimmage in annual preseason football jamborees.
At Junge Field in Joplin, the Eagles hosted Webb City, Lamar and Seneca.
"We wouldn't be playing Seneca or Lamar if they weren't quality programs, so it doesn't really matter what size they are. They're good programs, and we know we're going to see quality opponents," said Joplin Eagles head coach Curtis Jasper. "We're going to see alignments and assignments and be able to evaluate our guys and see are we executing and being able to execute our plays, execute our assignments and doing what we've been practicing for the last two weeks and throughout the summer."
Joplin squared off against Seneca in the first round of the jamboree in the north half of the field while Webb City and Lamar, with 24 state titles between them in various state classes, clashed in the south end of the field.
After a 10-minute break, Lamar and Seneca switched sides with the Tigers playing the Eagles and the Indians taking on the Cardinals.
Each team got 36 plays per session, 18 each on offense and defense, with regular game officials staffing the whistles on both ends.
There were some highlights, like Webb City's Andrew Elwell taking the ball up the middle for a long touchdown on the second play from scrimmage against Lamar's defense.
Seneca's Jackson Marrs also scored against Joplin's defense.
No one was keeping score or statistics for this event — it was just a chance to get out and play football.
"We don't go to any team camps," said Webb City first-year head coach Ryan McFarland. "We don't scrimmage opposing schools, so we've had 30 practices from June until today, and we've been playing ourselves the whole time. So our kids get excited about this because it's the first time all summer they've had a chance to go compete against someone else."
Lamar head coach Jared Beshore said the jamboree was a great chance to see what he called "the best program in the state of Missouri, ever," in Webb City.
"Our kids love that; we have a great relationship with their players," Beshore said. "Our coaching staff has a great relationship with their coaching staff, and so it is special. It's an opportunity for our kids to see exactly how a great program runs, the speed of the game, how they're coached, how disciplined they are, how physical they are, so it's great on our end, and we love it. Any chance we can as far as the jamboree, we love to lock horns with them."
Seneca coach Cody Hilburn said seeing the bigger schools in Joplin and Webb City was a chance to see team speed they likely wouldn't see in Class 2 football.
"They're both really good programs, and being a smaller school, getting to see that before we go into week one is huge," Hilburn said. "I think we learned we've got a lot of stuff to clean up. I think we had some penalties against Joplin that we've got to fix, and we didn't execute very good, but I think we came out and played a little bit better against Webb the second set. It's like I told our guys — you can't waste the first quarter or first half of a ballgame and turn it on in the second half. You're going to get beat."
