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EDWARDSVILLE – The Edwardsville High School football team and other area football teams, opened up preseason fall practice on Monday, the first day permitted by Illinois High School Association rules, and all went well as teams began preparations for the 2019 season.
Schools from all over the area, including Alton, Marquette Catholic, East Alton-Wood River, Roxana, Civic Memorial, Triad, Jersey, Carrollton, Hardin Calhoun and White Hall North Greene, among others, were able to open practice despite very heavy rains that fell earlier in the morning, and intense heat that built up later in the day, with a heat advisory in effect.
In the case of Metro-East Lutheran, it was the start of a new era, as they and Bunker Hill become the first area schools to play eight-man football, which the two schools will play this season due to not enough players. Eight-man is played on a shorter and narrower field that regulation 11-man football, with fewer linemen on either side of the ball.
All in all, things went very well for the Tigers in their opening day of practice.
“It was OK,” said Edwardsville coach Matt Martin. “We battled the heat, so you do what you can with it, and the kids did well.”
IHSA rules limit the first two days of practice to helmets only and no pads, so the Tigers’ coaching staff used the day to introduce special teams and reinforce the fundamentals of the game.
“We introduced special teams, and that went well,” Martin said. “The kids did well. You do a lot of fundamentals, and no contact, so you’re limited in what you can do, so it’s a good time to get back to basics, and have refreshers on the basics.”
And the Tigers were able to hold their practice session on their turf field at Tiger Stadium, which was a big advantage, due to the very heavy rain and thunderstorms that went through the St. Louis area earlier that morning. Martin cited what happened in Granite City, where nine inches of rain fell and virtually flooded the city. Following the football practice, the girls field hockey team and boys soccer team also opened their practices on the same turf field.
“To me, it’s one of the main examples of why you want to have turf,” Martin said. “You have three programs that are able to practice on the same stage, and if you have a grass field and you held practice today, you would destroy it for the rest of the season.”
Contact drills will be introduced gradually as the practice sessions progress, all leading up to the Tigers’ opening game on Aug. 30 at McCluer North in North St. Louis County.
“We’ll have shoulder pads on Wednesday, so we can get a little more contact in,” Martin said. “It just builds up gradually until opening day.”
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
