SportsZone Football Friday game of the week preview: Park Hill South at Rock Bridge
Watch a livestream of the game in the webplayer above.
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Rock Bridge football team will open up the season at home on Friday night, as the Park Hill South Panthers will make the trip to Columbia. Kickoff of the 2023 season will mark year two under Bruins head coach Matt Perkins
Kick off has been pushed back one hour later, at 8 p.m., due to the extreme heat in Mid-Missouri,.
The Panthers and the Bruins are our KZOU game of the week. You can watch the game live on KZOU over the air channel 17.3 at 7 p.m. 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
Perkins first took over the Rock Bridge program ahead of the 2022 season and found success in his debut year. He took the Bruins from four wins to nine win last season. He said that when he first got on campus, he knew the talent this team had.
“I walked in and I was kind in awe of the kids," he said. "I mean, you look around and there’s some really good talent in the room and so you kind of are like what’s going on here? You know, why have they finished where they finished?”
The Bruins ended up with the program's first ever CMAC title and a trip to the district championsship game in 2022. RB's season did come to an end at the hands of De Smet in that championship game.
Headed into a new season, Perkins said his team can use that district title loss as fuel and motivation. The Bruins return quite a bit of talent in 2023, including senior quarterback Sam Kaiser, who committed to play at Harvard in the off season.
"Nobody works harder than Sam," Perkins said. "He's a pro. He just comes to work everyday and wants to be great. I kind of watch him off to the side, in awe of him, and he may not be on the field, but he's over there working on his arm slot. I see him and, you know, he's thinking about things, just a real cerebral young man."
Perkins has been around the game of football for a while, but said this year's Bruin defense has a chance to be the best he's ever been around. That defense will go against a Park Hill South team that is operating under a new head coach.
"Anytime you got that kind of change, it alters the way you prepare. I think they're bringing back four or five starters on each side of the ball, so bringing back a little bit of expereince from a team that beat us last year. A lot of their production offensively is gone, at least numbers wise, and so maybe that's a bonus for us," Perkins said.
Don't miss the highlights from Rock Bridge's game and games around Mid-Missouri on SportsZone Football Friday on ABC 17 News at 10.
