Battle at Rock Bridge: SportsZone Football Friday game of the week
Watch a livestream of the game in the web player above.
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Rock Bridge and Battle will meet up in Week 7 of the high school football season, as the Spartans look for their second cross-town win of the season. The Bruins will be looking for a win in their first cross-town match up of the season.
The Bruins and the Spartans 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
Although it's Spartan head coach Matt Herman's first season at the helm of Battle football, he is no stranger to the CoMo cross-town match ups. When he was an assistant at Battle, years ago, the Spartans knocked off Rock Bridge a few times. His team will look to do the same on Friday night.
Herman and company already won a Columbia rivalry game against Hickman on Sept. 15.
"Even way back when we opened, it's always Battle against Columbia, so those two games alone kind of bring the excitement, bring the energy," Herman said. "The big part of this game is controlling those emotions. Don't be too high or too low when something happens."
You can watch the full interview with Herman in the video player below.
The Spartans have won two out of their last three games and Herman hopes to keep that momentum rolling into the final three weeks of play. Battle pulled out a gritty win in Week 6 against Smith-Cotton, topping the Tigers 20-14. Herman said that win showed quite a bit of growth in his team, who fell in a similar nail-biter against Capital City back in Week 2.
Quarterback Alex Fernandez has grown quite a bit as the season has gone on, as well.
"He responds to coaching. That's the one thing with Alex, he's ready to learn and he wants to get better everyday. It's all about reps for him." Herman said. "He did not get JV reps at quarterback. You know, his sophomore year was playing defense, his junior year was playing tight end, so this time finally getting game reps, live reps at quarterback has been phenomenal for him."
Rock Bridge has a couple of talented quarterbacks on its sideline, as well. QBs Sam Kaiser and Brady Davidson have been sharing time behind center in 2023. However, recently, Bruin fans have seen a lot of Davidson out there.
Head coach Matt Perkins said the one thing that stands out most about Davidson is how much of a positive energy he is for his football team.
"The thing that I don't think is praised enough, and I'm not sure it really can be, is his ability to lead the people around him," Perkins said. "We've spent a lot of time as a group, as a team together really since December and I can't remember him having one bad day, one day where he didn't try to make those around him better. That's probably the most unique quality about that kid."
You can watch the full interview with Perkins in the video player below.
Perkins and company have won four of their last five games and said they hope to keep that momentum rolling into postseason action. With just three games left in regular season play, Perkins said it's important for morale and buy-in to get some games written down in the win column.
Battle and Rock Bridge will kick off at 7 p.m. at Rock Bridge High School in Columbia.
