The Morgan Academy Senators welcomed six other Alabama Independent School Association teams to Selma for a chance to polish up their passing games and defenses.

The Senators hosted a 7-on-7 passing camp on Thursday, with Autauga Academy, Hooper Academy, Clarke Prep School, Macon-East Montgomery Academy, Lee-Scott Academy and East Memorial Christian Academy attending.

The Senators split up their varsity and junior high teams to make a total of eight teams for the camp, as each got a chance to play about six mock games where teams worked on passing and defending against the pass.

Senators head football coach Bob Taylor said while the Senators are a primarily run-first offense, he saw some good things from both groups throwing the football.

“We’re not exactly known for throwing the football, so any time we throw, it’s got to be a little bit better than what we are,” Taylor said. “Dalton (Lee) has done a good job doing his reads from what I seen, and from what I hear, Harrison (Adams) did a good job with his reads with the second group. The good thing I’ve seen is us catching the football. We’ve done a real good job catching it so far.”

Lee, who quarterbacked the varsity team, said camps like these help him work on his passing skills, and he hopes it helps the Senators get better heading into the season.

“It helps me find the open man, it helps me make better reads and it just helps me get better,” Lee said. “I’m hoping that we get better and hopefully we make playoffs and keep on going.”

Taylor added the camp also gave Morgan a chance to work on its defensive coverages.

“Defensively, they’re just getting better,” Taylor said. “They’re getting used to a new defensive coordinator and a new scheme that we’re trying to put in and fit our personnel a little bit better.”

Taylor said the camp was also good for the junior high team because it gave them experience against varsity level competition.

“It looks good. A lot of them are our junior high kids and they’re getting a good opportunity to work against varsity competition,” Taylor said, “and from what I watched the first game, they did a good job throwing the football, catching the football, playing good defense and doing what they’re supposed to do.”

And while the Senators will still lean heavily on the run this season, Taylor said its always nice to know you can throw when you need to and they’ll continue to work on their passing game with another 7-on-7 camp at Hooper Academy on Friday before starting fall practices on July 26.

“The biggest thing we’ve got to do is we want to be able to pass the ball when we want to, and the stuff we do out here is stuff that fits with what we try to do offensively with our run game,” Taylor said. “We’ve got some fakes off what we do and we’ve just got to continue to work and get better. It’s July, so this is an opportunity for us to work and get an opportunity to go against some folks that we don’t see during the year.”