SportsZone Football Friday game of the week preview: Battle vs. Rock Bridge
Week three of SportsZone Football Friday rolls on as high school teams across Missouri gear up for upcoming games.
Our SportsZone Football Friday game of the week this week is the matchup between Battle and Rock Bridge.
LIVE PLAYBACK of the game is available in the player below.
Rock Bridge football coach Van Vanatta said, “Battle is a good football team. There’s no doubt. This is a bi-time rivalry or has become a big-time rivalry. I think both teams are going to come to play, and I know they’ll bring their A-game. I think if we do ours, and we cut down on our mistakes, we’ll do just fine.”
You can watch the game live on KZOU over the air on channel 17.3. Rock Bridge won last year’s game between the two schools, 48-28.
Battle football coach Atiyyah Ellison said, “I just try not to emphasize the cross-town rivalry, which they all know that. I try to get them to focus on what we do and stay off of Twitter, stay off of Facebook and all that talking back and forth. We’re going to play the game, so all that chatting is unnecessary.”
The cross-town rivalry features the Spartans who just got their first win of the season with a victory over Smith-Cotton and first head coaching win for Ellison to improve to 1-1.
“It was a lot of fun. Our kids came out and played lights out. Hopefully, we do the same on Friday. If you focus on what we are doing well and doing the best that we can on the stuff you are coached to do, then we won’t have to worry as much about the other team coming in,” Ellison said.
Battle will head across town to Sells Field where the Bruins are 0-2 on the year. However, Rock Bridge’s record is deceiving, because the Bruins played two of the best teams in the state, DeSmet and Rockhurst, to start the season.
Vanatta said, “We’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way, and I think Sunday we had a really long meeting with the team and the coaches. We decided we are going to shut off the computer, turn it back on and reboot everything this week. So far, it’s good. I think the kids in the locker room have this kind of sick feeling, and I’ll be honest, I kind of like that, because I think they know they are capable of much more.”
You can watch highlights of the game during SportsZone Football Friday at 10:00 p.m.
We will also have highlights from the following games:
Jefferson City at Hickman
Schuyler County at Fayette
Blair Oaks at Boonville
Lafayette County at Moberly
Salisbury at Harrisburg
Marshall at Mexico
Slater at MMA
Eldon at Hallsville
Helias at Vianney
We will have scores from the following games:
California at Osage
Marceline at Brookfield (Bell Game)
West Plains at Camdenton
North Callaway at Clopton/Elsberry
Warsaw at Cole Camp
Owensville at Cuba
St. James at Hermann
Fulton at Kirksville
Westran at Knox County
South Shelby at Macon
Bowling Green at Mark Twain
South Callaway at Montgomery County
Centralia at Palmyra
Hillcrest at Rolla
Paris at Scotland County
Smith-Cotton at Warrensburg
Tipton at Windsor
Van-Far at Wright City
