I'm Phil Knee with an update on sports.
Richland Center of our city volleyball team had a very good opening day at an early season tournament at just a game field house in Wisconsin Dells.
They defeated Westby 25-20 and 26-24 in the opener, followed by a two sets to one win over Lady Smith.
The Hornets then gained confidence with a comeback win, two sets to one over Cuba City.
The team advanced to the gold bracket and they will face Darlington at 9.30 this morning at the Jag.
Riverdale will be there today as well.
They'll be a part of the early season tournament playing today and tomorrow.
Also on today's schedule, River Valley Soccer is doing battle tonight.
They'll be at Lodi.
JV match begins at five, followed by varsity at 645.
Night number two of high school football is this weekend.
Richland center preparing for week two.
Coach Andrew Troxell talked about what led to the win last week on the opening night against Viroqua
special teams without a question.
You know, I mean, we have changed quite a bit in our preparation and development of athletes, but certainly, uh, on all three phases, there's things that we've been tweaking, but special teams got a huge overhaul.
No, so to take the opening kickoff back,
You know, and Jaden Schep scored a touchdown, and then on the other kickoff that he received, we take that back for a consecutive touchdown, you know, and put 14 points on the board with our specials.
I mean, that was absolutely outstanding.
I mean, testament to Jaden and the athleticism, the speed that he has, right?
But also, I mean, with our blocking, you know, and simplifying our responsibilities, I mean, I think I could have got some positive yards.
on return on that.
So, you know, just overall, it was, I was very pleased with that part for sure.
When you talk about special teams, though, that's something that you kind of throw in right before that first game.
So I don't know if I've ever had a coach tell me that special teams was one of the highlights after the first game coach.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, we have, we looked at it as the third phase of the game, you know, and that's a huge momentum turner, you know, with anybody, right?
And so what we did and we'll do this year is we're going to take our athletes.
and work to put them on kickoff and kick return and make sure that we are going to be fast on special teams.
And that certainly showed up on Friday night.
So I know a lot of other schools will get other kids in there that are backups or maybe in a V2 role or whatnot.
But we're going to have starters, right?
I mean, we did a lot of speed training over the summer.
And my top 11, 12 guys, they're the ones that are going to be on that for sure.
We're not going to leave anything to chance.
You know, we're just, but the most athletic personnel on that, that part of the field that we can
reach phone center will be hosting Potosi Castville for the home opener at a vitus rip field on Friday night.
River Valley suffered a loss against Evansville on the opening night.
I talked to coach Tyler McClain this
week.
First and foremost, um, I think defensively, like we got to do a lot better job of, uh, in faith or in faith tackling a little bit.
Uh, we got to let too much out on the edge.
on their offense.
For us offensively, we got to clean up our run game a little bit.
We did not do a good job of containing number 19 Larson for them.
We need to do a better job of kind of controlling the front and then be able to have that run game so we can support the rest of our group.
Likewise, I guess what were some things that you were happy with with your team?
like I told the boys before the game and after the game, like I love their fight.
We definitely had a lot of young mistakes out there, young guys out there.
We're kind of over that fact of excuse anymore, but we were fighting the entire time.
And that's what I love about this group.
And I'll tell them again and again, like if this is going to be a fighting group matter of score, I'll take this group each and every week.
River Valley football travels to Wisconsin Dells on Friday night.
Riverdale football getting ready for a game against Hillsborough on Friday night.
Coach Jeff Johnson talked to me.
this week about last Friday's 14 nothing lost to Ithaca Weston.
You know one of the things that I felt was we I didn't think we played very well and to contend with a team of that caliber that that's a good thing that the you know 14 and nothing against Ithaca and they're probably going to be at the top of their league.
I think if we could have converted on those two plays all sudden
Yeah, we're going in overtime.
So we have to iron out a couple of small issues would be OK.
When you look at that first week to the second week, you like to make a lot of progress.
And what are some areas you're really going to work on this week?
Every coach says it's back to fundamentals.
If we do the little things right, we're going to be OK.
We had a couple of misreads.
We have a couple of missteps on defense.
Miles played well.
It's the small stuff.
Proving it's a game of inches.
There are a couple of throws by your quarterback, Bev and Dennis, that were within inches of being huge completions.
And also, it's because Fumble came right back to them.
You know, that could have easily gone the other way too.
So there were some just real crucial like within inches plays, weren't there?
Yeah, absolutely.
My college coach always said that
Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.
And I'm not saying we weren't prepared, but that's just a little bit of karma.
Things just went their way.
If we play on this week, maybe it's 14 and up in us.
Coach Jeff Johnson Riverdale as they prepare for a game at Hillsborough on Friday night.
Also starting this season this week and Richland Center Ithaca cross country team.
They'll have a total of 10 meets this year starting Saturday with a cashed in invitation.
He gets underway at 9 o'clock.
I talked to Coach Eric Minden about the start of the season.
Yeah, it looks like we've got some pretty good numbers.
Graduated a big class last year, so hard to replace that many in numbers.
But yeah, it looks like cross.
high school, middle school, boys, girls.
We should be in the low to mid 30s this year for numbers.
Last year, I know you got off to a good start.
Your girls team suffered a setback as far as injury and how you look in this year?
Our girls team looks strong this year.
I'll return most of the runners, bringing up a strong freshman, Margaret Lawless.
So I'm expecting some really good performances from the girls team.
They put the miles in this summer, so I'm excited to see what that looks like on race day.
And for the boys, obviously, graduated a lot of talents, but bringing back a lot as well and had some younger runners that were expecting some big step forward.
We've got some good leadership at the top.
Right.
You had some really dynamic seniors last year that put in a lot of time, not only during the season.
Do you see that in the offseason with the current runners that they put in a lot of time?
Yeah, we felt like a lot of the younger runners picked up those habits.
So Graydon Burns, Will Harpen, some of those younger runners for us, Ben Waterford, I think they took a step up in their offseason commitments and Owen Dreyer should be back stronger than ever this year.
So yeah, really excited to see what that young court can do for
us.
I asked Eric about last year's run to stay for the boys team and how that helps the program.
I think success breeds success.
I think other people want to be a part of that.
And we have a younger runner that's already in the program that sees what those seniors are doing and then you go back and look at, you know, what those seniors' times were as a freshman and they're comparable to what you were running.
I think it just opens up world of possibilities.
I think that was a strong point for some of our younger runners is that, you know, they're capable of doing that same thing if they put in the same amount of work.
That's kind of the hope is that we can bring that out of them as well.
Good luck to the Richland Center Ithaca runners as they get ready for Saturday's meet and the season.
Good luck to the Arena Aces home talent baseball tonight.
Knight League championship game a week away so it's semifinals tonight.
Arena makes the long trip to Evansville tonight.
and Columbus is at Verona as well in the semifinal games for home talent baseball.
The Brewers scored big in what became an unexpected bullpen game last night in New York.
Starter Dustin May left with an injury after facing one batter, but the bullpen kept things in check the rest of the way with an eight one victory.
Robert Gasser earned the win in relief.
That impressed his manager, Pat
Murphy.
He was great.
He really was.
I mean, that's not an easy
the assignment and he knew he was available tonight in a small role, but he went out and gave us parts of six, made big pitches at big times.
Yeah.
And you got to give William credit.
William did a great job.
Jockeying him through that.
Sal Freilich had three hits and Bryce Durang hit his 17th home run to lead the offense.
Yeah, it was
great.
Vaughn hit and run and
You know, Hamilton, good piece of hitting.
Sal is great tonight.
I mean, Sal Freelike on base four times his first game back.
It's fantastic.
Jake Mizorowski
will start the rubber game of the series coming up later today against the New York Mets.
The Cubs lost to Arizona 2-0, San Diego 3-0 over Pittsburgh, Cincinnati 10 San Francisco 9, Colorado 13-1 over Washington, Atlanta beat the Dodgers 6-5.
In the American League, Tampa Bay 3-0 over Detroit, Cleveland 4 the Angels 3, Toronto 3-0 over Kansas City, Yankees
Houston 3, White Sox 10-4 over Texas, Athletics 7-4 against Minnesota.
Philadelphia, six non-win against Seattle.
It was Miami four, Boston nothing, Baltimore eight, seven over St.
Louis.
The Packers situation with veteran running back Josh Jacobs is still uncertain.
There have been no official announcements from the district attorney's office after his arrest on domestic abuse charges.
The NFL front office could also decide to suspend him.
Yard Barker dot com reports that losing Jacobs would be a major blow to the offense.
and roster cut days coming quickly.
General manager Brian Gundacoonst could still make a move before the season opener in 17 days.
And an ESPN poll confirms the obvious.
The steal of the 2026 NBA draft.
came with a bucks chose guard, Braden Burris behind the buck past.com reports that he received twice the votes awarded to the second rookie on the list.
Burris has been projected as a top five or six prospect all along coming out of college.
Milwaukee got him at number 10.
He looks like he will be a significant contributor, breaking a string of not such good picks for the bucks.
One of their NFL story nationally, the Pro Bowl is no more.
The NFL announced the move Wednesday, bringing an end to an exhibition of the league's top players that was held in some form or another almost every year since 1951.
The game was not played in 2021 because of COVID, but that was the only pause in the postseason event.
They will still honor 88 players as Pro Bowlers, but there will be no game.
I am Phil Knee with an update on sports.