Draughn’s 7th annual Wildcat Invitational a success despite heat, lightning

The Draughn football team got in a lot of important work during its seventh annual Wildcat Invitational 7-on-7 tournament June 12-13 in Valdese.

The event, which was held over two days for the second straight year, saw the Wildcats face off against East Lincoln, Foard, Hunter Huss, Burns, and Hibriten in 20-minute, running-clock scrimmages that took place on Draughn’s practice and game fields.

Although the squads had to deviate from the originally planned format of pool play on day one and a single-elimination tournament on day two — extreme heat forced the start of the event to be delayed before lightning in the area led to an early finish on day one — all six teams ultimately got to participate in what was essentially a round-robin competition.

“It is a tournament-type deal, but at the end of the day it’s about getting as many reps as you can, and the sole basis of this was to get a lot of work in one or two days versus having to travel all over the place during the summer,” Draughn ninth-year head coach Chris Powell said. “... And I thought overall it ended up being a great event. We were able to get a lot of good work in, a lot of great competition, so it’s great to have coaches that understand the bigger picture, that it is about the reps, it is about the work, and not necessarily about who won it.”

Given that the regular season doesn’t start until Aug. 21, the Wildcats are still in the early stages of their preparation for the 2026 campaign. A youthful Draughn roster won just one game a season ago, and Powell estimates that about one-third of this year’s group is made up of incoming freshmen, which creates extra challenges in terms of getting the right players in the right spots.

“We’re really still trying to figure out a lot of positions skill-wise, getting our guys to understand the speed of the game, where the windows are,” Powell said. “… Teaching these kids our system this first two weeks, we really haven’t been able to line up and go against each other and get some 7-on-7 work and stuff like that, so it was really good for our guys on offense, especially our quarterbacks, to see that. I thought they made a lot of growth as the two days went on.

“Defensively, I thought we had some miscues at times, but that’s to be expected. This was also the first time we’ve thrown against anybody all summer and so we grew as we went, and at the end of the day that’s what we’re trying to do in these things.”

On the flip side, having so many young players means that they are hungry to prove themselves, and Powell believes that healthy competition can be a good thing for the overall development of a team.

“You’ve got guys who want to get out there and they want to play, they want to earn a spot on the field, so you’ve got a lot of competition across the board,” Powell said. “... The repetition was huge last week and going against the caliber of opponents that we went against. I mean, you’ve got teams that have made deep playoff runs every year, former state champions and things like that, so it was great competition. We grew, we got better.”

Draughn has plenty more 7-on-7 scrimmages to come, as the Wildcats were scheduled to take part in a total of 13 between Thursday and today (Saturday, June 20) at Lenoir-Rhyne University’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp before traveling to West Iredell next week for another FCA camp. The Wildcats’ linemen were also set to participate in drills at L-R this week.

But prior to competing in those events, Powell took some time to reflect on what the Wildcat Invitational has meant since its inception in 2018 and what he’s hoping to accomplish with it in the future.

“This is a big thing for us … and I think it’s big for local teams,” he said. “The way I look at it and always have is I want to get reps, and I don’t want to have to travel seven, eight times throughout the summer, go different places to get a bunch of reps. … This year of course the heat was extremely crazy, so I threw the idea around to a couple of the coaches that were there, and they all seemed very excited about it, of next year doing it on a Thursday and Friday night.”

Powell noted that playing night games is atypical for 7-on-7s. However, such a setup would allow teams to avoid daytime heat and could potentially result in larger crowds and exciting matchups “under the lights.”

“If we have eight teams like we normally have, you’ve got two pools of four,” Powell said. “And so, four teams are playing, you’ve got four teams resting, and that way you’re not worried so much about kids getting gassed.

“We’re excited about the future of it, it’s something we’re gonna keep rolling with. My wife got vendors involved the last couple years and that’s been a huge success as well, giving local vendors business and them being able to come out and support our program, and we’re grateful and very appreciative of that. So, it’s a great event, and hopefully we can continue to grow it and keep it rolling.”

Vendors at this year’s event included Emren’s Boutique, Hot Shots Espresso, Foothills Fizz, and Kona Ice.