Fort Mill using offseason to find missing pieces

With key parts missing at the moment the main goal for the Fort Mill Yellow Jackets now and over the summer is to fill in those missing pieces.

The first of those pieces starts with the quarterback position. The Jackets were led by Ryan DeLuca last year, but he is gone and off to college at Furman University. Right now, Fort Mill has three players vying for that spot — JT Marr, Dylan Helms and Drew Hartman.

Fort Mill had close to 90 players show up for spring practice, but head coach Ed Susi said that number will probably drop to 80 by the time summer rolls around.

“We got a lot of numbers,” Susi said. “There were 45 in the freshman class. The numbers have been real good.”

Susi said he tries not to get too stressed out during the three weeks of spring practice teams are allotted every year. He knows that is time evaluations will be made about the upcoming season and when the roster just begins to take shape.

“It’s spring,” he said. “I try not to get too mad or too happy. Until we get out here in the summer will we see what things are about.”

Unlike last season, when construction at Bob Jones Stadium impacted the beginning of the season and forced the Jackets on the road for the start of the 2016 campaign, this year, Fort Mill will begin the season with four straight home games starting Aug. 18 against Spring Valley.

The Jackets will then have home games Aug. 25 against West Florence, Sept. 1 against Lancaster and Sept. 8 against Orangeburg-Wilkinson. Their first road game will be at York Sept. 15 before their bye week Sept. 22. After their bye week, they will have two more home games against Clover Oct. 6 and against Nation Ford Oct. 27 to end the regular season.

This story was originally published May 22, 2017 at 6:14 PM with the headline "Fort Mill using offseason to find missing pieces."