Coming off last year’s first-ever outright district title, the Porters Chapel Academy Eagles went to work for the upcoming 2005 season on Monday morning.

Second-year head coach Randy Wright welcomed 24 players to the start of pre-season drills, three more than last year’s total of 21.

The team will work twice a day in shorts and helmets until Wednesday. On Thursday, the team will don shoulders pads for four workouts. Full pad contact starts next Monday.

“We’ll be doing a lot of conditioning work, but we’re also going to put in some of our base offense and defense this week,” Wright said. “We didn’t have that much of a spring because a lot of our guys were playing baseball.

“But we had some pretty good summer workouts and I think the guys came out in good shape.”

Last season, the Eagles went 9-1 in the regular season and won the Mississippi Private Schools Association’s District 4-A title. They later lost in the first round of the Academy-A playoffs to Lee, Ark., 26-20.

“We won our first district championship in school history and finished 9-2. I would say we have a lot of high expectations for this season,” Wright said.

Wright, though, said he has two areas of immediate concern that he wants to see the team progress on during the first two weeks of practice.

“We really need to shore up our offensive line and shore up our defensive backfield,” he said.

The Eagles have eight starters back on defense but the secondary has some openings to fill.

On offense, five starters return, but one of those is moving to another position because of the injury to last season’s starting quarterback, Michael Busby. Busby had elbow surgery in May.

“Michael is out for the year. It’s tough not having your starting quarterback, but he’s working hard in rehab and should be ready to go for baseball season,” Wright said.

Taking over at quarterback will be Hayden Hales, who saw most of his playing time at tight end last season.

“He got in a few snaps there in some mop up duty,” Wright said. “We’ll have Matt Cranfield behind him.”

By the end of next week, Wright could have an idea where the Eagles stand. They have scheduled a scrimmage game at PCA on Aug. 5 against University Christian.

A week later, they’ll participate in the Leake Academy Jamboree.

“We’re one of eight teams in it and we’ll play two quarters,” Wright said. “They’ve got some good teams in it like Jackson Prep and Leake is always good. Tri-County and Manchester are also in it.”