I am Phil Knee with the WRCO Sports Update.
High school football actually kicks off for some teams tonight.
Eight player and eleven player teams.
Oneowook Center is playing at Monticello this afternoon.
Wisconsin Heights at Highland tonight.
Belmont at Kick-A-Boo Lefarge, Bangor travels to Melrose-Mondoro.
It's DeSoto at North Crawford and Portage at Wisconsin Dells, kicking off the new season.
Riverdale will kick off tomorrow night as they will be hosting Ithaca-Weston in the inaugural game for the 26th campaign.
I asked Riverdale head coach, Jeff Johnson, about last Friday's scrimmage for the chieftains at
Royal.
We competed against two really good teams with Boston and Royal Royal did well last year.
I think they're five and four made the playoffs.
Boston struggled a little bit in their league, but they're a division, division four team.
They gave us everything that we could handle and we rose to the occasion.
When you look at scrimmages, what are some main things that you're looking for from your team?
Well, number one, every program is going to say this.
Can we come out healthy?
And then we got a lot of the first year kids, some younger kids, some newer kids, some really good, meaningful reps.
Our office looks solid.
There's some decision-making things that we'd have to do.
with some of our plays and the defense looked really, really good.
Last Jeff about Riverdale's captains and leaders this year.
We had a vote last week and it was overwhelming the four boys that were selected.
Bevin Dennis, he was a second team all conference player last year.
He did not get all the conference on defense.
I thought he's a better defensive player than offense.
Owen Blankenship was another captain.
He's solid in offense and defense.
Ethan Cagle came back.
He's coming back from an injury from last year.
He's solid and Blake Dickman.
He doesn't miss the weight room.
He's working out.
He's fast.
He's strong.
So our senior leadership is really solid.
Riverdale gets set to open up against Ithaca-Weston on Friday night.
We'll have the game on WRCE, FM 107.7.
River Valley gets set to open up against Evansville.
I talked to second year head coach Tyler McClain about how it's went for River Valley at its scrimmage last week.
Overall, well, again, we we lost a lot of that guys from last year.
A lot of roles have opened up.
So it was really good to see a lot of our young guys and guys who've kind of been waiting in the wings to get their first kind of opportunity to see a different color, decide their selves and practice here the entire time.
A lot of things that was a lot of good.
I know definitely a lot of things that we look to clean up here as we prepare for Evansville.
What do you think the strengths of the team will be this year?
What do you anticipate?
I do think there is a little bit of unknown with our guys right now, and I think that's exciting.
I do believe in our front right now, our offensive line.
We've been really trying to simplify and make things a little bit more consistent for our guys up front.
Each and every day I've seen improvement from them, so I'm excited to see that group kind of develop throughout the year.
What about who's helping you this year?
Your coaching staff remain pretty well the same?
Yeah, we had a couple of new faces joined on this year.
My offensive line coach, Austin Montague, actually took a college opportunity, which is awesome for him.
So Darry Blake is going to fill in there.
And then Andy Waters is going to help out in the staff as well.
So pretty similar staff.
Same DC with Coach Billington as well.
We'll be ready to roll here.
Black Fox coach Tyler McClain, his team opens up against Evansville on Friday night.
Night League home talent baseball action going on tonight.
Reedsburg will be home against Columbus and Sun Prairie will visit Arena in the second round of the night league playoffs.
I talked to Nick Larson, manager of Arena about their opponent.
We don't really know a lot about Sun Prairie.
Just kind of ask a few of the guys that they knew anybody and nobody really seemed to.
even though much about him, which is kind of exciting to make to a new, a new opponent and, uh, kind of keep us on our toes and just looking at their scores through the league.
They, uh, put up a lot of runs, but, um, they're also get interesting matchup because they're, they're still competing in the Sunday league playoffs.
So we'll see what they throw at us.
Arena picked up a win in the opening round of the night league playoffs last week against Belleville,
a revenge game.
So to speak on Belleville after they.
They bumped us out on the Sunday league playoff and guys came out eager to get it going on Thursday nights and we hit the ball well and Nate pitched a heck of a game and the guys are excited and we were kind of limbo there with thinking we only had one home game and Middleton got upset and gave us a chance for a second home game.
So the guys are really excited.
Arena host Son Prairie will have it for you tonight on FM 100.9 and WRCO.com.
On to the state scene where the Brewers were down 7-0 last night.
They did ship away, but they eventually fell 7-5.
To even the series, the Mariners picked up a win, avenging a 22-0 loss from the night before.
Dustin May gave up all seven runs and took the
loss.
I mean, it was all very mediocre, Commander Knight.
There was some stuff that I left on the side.
There was a couple pulls, but I felt
For the most part, I made some pretty good pitches and needed counts to get some weak contact.
It just like just didn't work out.
And
here is manager Pat Murphy talking about his starting pitcher.
He's
behind in the count.
Nearly every hitter didn't command his stuff for sure.
I mean, he didn't, he didn't have command of anything.
So that usually that good cutter that brings about that sets up a sweeper or a high, high heater at 98, but he didn't get to those pitches because he was behind.
Robert Gasser starts the rubber game of the three game series this afternoon.
Pat Murphy doesn't sound like the manager of a team with the best record in the major leagues as he discusses what the Brewers have accomplished.
The two-time reigning National League manager of the year says that he doesn't think the team is playing great and hasn't really gelled.
The Brewers results have told a different story this year.
Also, from the world of baseball, the Cubs lost in their battle against the White Sox.
3-0.
Pittsburgh, 4-3 over Detroit.
Minnesota, 6 and Atlanta, 4.
Arizona, 7-6 over Boston.
San Francisco beat Cleveland, 1-0.
And Washington over Texas, 6-0.
In the National League, the Mets 4-2 over San Diego, Philadelphia 4, Miami 1, Cincinnati 5, and St.
Louis 4, the Dodgers 6-4 over Colorado.
In the American League, Tampa Bay 7, Toronto 6, the Yankees 5-3 over Baltimore, Kansas City 9, the Athletics 7, and Houston was a winner against the Angels 3-2.
Packers running back Josh Jacobs should be available for the season opener at Minnesota.
Jacobs 78 yards rushing and 74 NFL touchdowns over that last eight seasons are only topped by Derek Henry of the Baltimore Ravens.
Having him in the lineup is important for the Packers as they face the tough Vikings rush defense.
Opponents rushing success rate against Minnesota was less than 41 percent.
last season.
Nearly no one is giving the Badgers a chance against Notre Dame in the season opener.
Odds makers favoring the fighting Irish by 18 and a half points.
When betting opened, that has jumped to 20 and a half points.
Notre Dame is rated fourth in the first AP college football poll.
The ESPN matchup predictor gives Wisconsin just a 7% chance to pull off the upset in the game at Lambeau Field September 6th.
I am Phil Knee with an update on sports.