SportsZone Football Friday game of the week preview: Capital City vs. Battle
COLUMBIA, Mo (KMIZ)
The Capital City Cavaliers will continue their first varsity season with a week two match up versus the Battle Spartans on Friday night.
You can watch the game live on KZOU over the air channel 17.3. Here is a look at other local listings:
- DirecTV - channel 18
- Dish Network - channel 32
- Mediacom - channel 12, 709
- Centurylink - channel 12
- Spectrum - channel 183
Watch a replay of the game in the player below.
The Cavaliers first game as a varsity squad ended in a 41-point loss to Warrensburg. On the other hand, the Spartans started off their season in a much different way, with a commanding win over Fort Zumwalt North.
Fort Zumwalt's defense was not able to contain Battle on the ground. The Spartans notched two long kickoff returns, with one totaling over 90 yards.
Battle football coach Atiyyah Ellison said his team needs to maintain the energy they brought in the first half, into the second this week.
"Hopefully this week we can focus and play hard for four quarters," he said.
However, the key to Battle and Capital City's matchup will be which defense comes out to play, as both gave up more than 40 points on week one.
Ellison said his first point of action this past week was fixing the small things.
"We cleaned up our tackling some this week," he said. "It's people with bad eyes not looking where they need to be looking. It's all small things. I think everybody's attitude and energy was where it needed to be it was just some technique issues."
Friday night will be the first time that Battle and Capital City meet as two varsity squads.
Ellison said it feels like a new slate.
"We kind of have a rivalry with Fort Zumwalt North, but we don't have any reason not to like Capital City," he said.
Although it is the Spartans first time seeing the Cavaliers on the field, Ellison said he is not going into this one unprepared.
"I went to some of those JV and freshmen games last year and that was one of the games I went to, was against Capital City. They look very capable. They did a lot of good things," he said. "It's not like we don't know them and we have some footage from last week."
Ellison added that he expects his team to play hard for four quarters, but also take it all moment-by-moment.
"Somebody's not going to do something right or somebody's going to mistake, but you've just got to push forward," he said. "It's always the next play and this comes from [Gary] Pinkel too. You flush it and go on, whether you did something good or bad on the previous play."
