By Jim Henry
sports@joplinglobe.com
JOPLIN, Mo. —
St. Mary’s-Colgan and Girard collide tonight in the traditional “Kickoff Classic” that marks the start of the high school football season in southeast Kansas.
“I like Thursday nights in general,” Colgan head coach Chuck Smith said. “We’re probably not ready, but a week from now we won’t be any more ready. Both teams need to play.
“Coaches will tell you from Game 1 to Game 2 is when you make the most improvement. I think that will happen. Right now we have a long way to go. Hopefully we will play Girard well and make a big improvement in getting ready for the second week.”
The 7 o’clock game at Hutchinson Field in Pittsburg doubles as a CNC League game — for one of the teams.
Colgan, whose CNC title run was halted by Riverton and Galena the last two seasons, is in one of the six-team Class 2-1A districts being used on a trial basis by the KSHSAA over the next two seasons. With district games the last five weeks of the season, that leaves only four dates for CNC games — one short of the minimum needed to qualify for team and individual honors according to the conference by-laws.
Girard was assigned to a 4A district with three non-CNC teams — CNC member Baxter Springs is also 4A but placed in another district. Once the season schedules were finalized by school administrators, it was noticed by the athletics directors that Girard’s schedule included only four CNC teams not counting Colgan — Southeast, Frontenac, Riverton and Erie.
To solve Girard’s conference game shortage, league officials decided to count the Colgan game as a conference game, making the Trojans eligible for conference honors.
But the Panthers’ next three games against CNC foes Frontenac, Southeast and Galena will not count in the league standings for either team.
A day-long rain didn’t prevent the Panthers from practicing outside Wednesday afternoon.
“I knew we had a chance of playing in the rain, so we needed to get used to it,” Smith said. “It rained the whole practice. As soon as we quit, it quit.”
Girard returns four starters on both sides of the ball from last year’s 3-6 team, and Smith anticipates the Trojans to field another physical team.
“Leon Miller (Girard coach) will have his kids play hard, and they will be ready,” Smith said. “I have a lot of respect for Leon. He’s old-school football, and you’d better be ready because they will line up and come at you.
“We have a lot of kids who have been sore, and we have not had a lot of contact. That worries me a little bit, going into a big, physical game. The speed of the game will change a little bit because it won’t be 1s going against 2s.”
