By Jacob Heid

CENTRAL WISCONSIN — The 2022 football season has been going strong for a few weeks now. Finally, after two weeks of practicing with teammates, area school football teams got a chance to enhance their skills in scrimmages on Aug 12. 

The scrimmages allow the kids to practice against someone other than themselves before the first game. They were also pumped to hit someone with a different jersey on. 

“It’s always nice to play against somebody new in a different color jersey, especially after two weeks of practicing,” Amherst head coach Mark Lusic said after their scrimmage versus Winneconne. “The team was excited, and it was a good learning experience for the 2022 season.”

SPASH got to play on the new turf at Goerke Field versus De Pere. Head coach Ryan Eigenberger said the team came in ready to play the scrimmage. 

“I thought it was great (the team’s performance). It was awesome getting out here and playing a quality opponent in De Pere and seeing where we’re at,” he said. 

Pacelli got a scrimmage under its belt as well. Head coach Drew Nelson says the film always helps this early in the season. 

“There is a bit to shore up on defense and offense which came to light on film,” he said. “Being able to go live against a full defense and offense, I think the scrimmage helped us get better.”

All three coaches emphasized that the scrimmages did nothing but help track where their respective teams were after two weeks of practice. Both coaches liked certain things but said there are always ways to improve. 

“ We did some good things on both sides of the ball. But, there are a lot of things for me to work on,” Lusic stated. “That is the whole point of a scrimmage, to give you kind of an idea of where you are at this point in the season.”

Eigenberger talked about how the team performed under a new playbook. 

“Today was to see where we are at in week two with new schemes offensively and defensively. I think we showed a lot in how we want to play and our execution.”

The Panthers started the scrimmage on offense and scored on four out of five drives. Then the defense came out and didn’t allow a touchdown for approximately the 15 minutes they were on the field. 

Looking at what happened during the scrimmages helped all the coaches pinpoint a goal for week one. Pacelli’s Nelson said coming out more physical is a must for his team.

“We need to be more physical at the point of attack,” he said. 

Eigenberber emphasized having a week-long goal as they head into Friday night. 

“We tell them our focus is to win the week,” he said.” Every day we need to put in the work to win on a Friday. You can’t just show up on a Friday and expect to win. Kimberly is going to be a great test for us. We’re going to have a lot of fun with it.”

Lusic saw that Amherst needs be the aggressor early. 

“Coming out and setting the tone right away.” is one thing Lusic singled out. “We were not mentally engaged at the beginning of the scrimmage, and it showed. We need to come out prepared from start to finish if we want to be successful versus Clintonville.” 

Each team got a sense of what needs to be done to get a win in the first week of the season, starting Aug 19. Pacelli gets its season rolling on Aug 18. If you have other sports news or information, contact me at [email protected]. Also, follow me on Twitter at JacobHeid_15 for more area sports coverage.