DAPHNE, Alabama — Coming off its best season ever, Bayside Academy opened its first week of practice with two two-a-days and a long single practice sandwiched in between before putting on the pads Thursday.

Head coach Phil Lazenby was pleased with most of what he saw.

“All our practices have been good,” he said. “Kids are learning. The new offensive line is working hard. They know they have big and important shoes to fill and roles to play. It all starts up there and I’m encouraged with the effort.

“Of course, we still have a way to go. We only have one (OL) starter returning (Michael Daves) and he’s key to helping them learn what to do. So we are somewhat inexperienced up front and we’ll have to find a way to accelerate the learning curve, but we have great kids and they are serious about it. Now the rest of the people know what’s going on. And we have every bit of our kicking game in, so that's good.”

Bayside will take part in a preseason game in Montgomery to help raise money for Catholic Charities.

“We don’t know who we’ll play exactly just yet, but it will be a big help for us to play up there before we get started with the regular-season (Aug. 31) games.

The Admirals kick off the regular-season opener with a former 5A powerhouse out of Troy, now the largest 4A school in the state in Charles Henderson.

“Very good football team,” Lazenby said. “Have big boys on both sides of the ball and are well coached by Mike Dean (Former Head coach at McGill-Toolen and former player at Fairhope) and it will be nice to see him again. But they are going to be good.

“We have our hands full, but we have to play the bigger schools now and it will make us better and more competitive in our 3A region games. So we are looking forward to that one but it all really starts with the first game in the region after that.”

The Admirals will spend the weekend at Camp Grace in Mobile in what has become a traditional preseason retreat/training camp setting before returning to campus Monday.