Fall Sports Prepare Athletes Early
Serena Mueller
Feature Editor
Fall sports create a hectic schedule for athletes, and the busyness begins on the second week of school with scrimmages for the volleyball, football and softball team.
The annual Booster Bash was on this past Friday, August 22nd. The football and volleyball teams conducted scrimmages and ran different drills for parents and all the other students. Softball held their scrimmage separate from the Booster Bash on Tuesday, August 19th.
The softball scrimmage gave players an opportunity to compete in a more realistic game-scenario rather than just practicing together, which stands true for the other sports as well.
“It gives our coaches a look at how players react to an actual game situation and allows the players know what we need to work on before the season is in full swing,” senior softball player Taylor Bodfield said.
Athletes have faith in themselves and a majority believe that this scrimmage at the beginning of the year doesn’t fully capture what the team is capable of.
“Scrimmages are for making mistakes and giving the coaches an idea for what we need to work on, but also what we’re already good at,” sophomore softball player Kennedy Peterson said.
Football and volleyball players concur that scrimmages give the athletes a bit of game experience versus experience in practice, which has a much more laid back atmosphere.
“The scrimmage helped the football team. It put us in a game situation and gave us a feeling of how it will be the first game,” junior football player Chase Diekmann said.
The teams don’t believe the competition captures how well they could and will perform throughout the year.
“It helps to know what our team is good at, but it only gives us a small taste of the action, we knew each individual out there so we had some sympathy in how tough we would play,” senior football player Chey Schuelke said.
The football scrimmage held a bit of a twist post-game that none of the other teams decided to do. Parents of the players were invited down to the track during their competition to call the plays during the second half, and afterwards joined coaches on the track to battle against each other in some friendly feuds. Also, the kids in the student section (including siblings of the athletes) joined the teams to ring the victory bell.
Freshmen, junior varsity and varsity followed one after the other for the volleyball scrimmages.
“Playing in a gym with no one watching is completely different than playing with a crowd watching. It helped us with controlling our nerves and I think it will benefit us in the long run,” senior volleyball player Ashley Neujahr said.
The teams continue to work at their skills and interaction with one another with hopes of improving throughout the year.
