COLDWATER, MI (WTVB) – The Branch County 2015 varsity high school football season kicks off tonight including an out of town home game for Coldwater as the Cardinals travel to Trine University in Angola to host the Hastings Saxons. The season opener for Coldwater was changed to an away game because of construction delays on the new turf playing surface at Cardinal Field, which won’t be ready to use until sometime at the end of next week.
It’s a 7 p.m. kickoff tonight for Coldwater at Fred Zollner Athletic Stadium and we’ll have the action live on the radio with our pre-game coverage on AM 1590 and FM 95.5 beginning at 6:30 p.m. You can also listen to the contest on-line with the audio streaming at wtvbam.com. Coldwater is coming off its second straight playoff season following an 8-2 record while Hastings has had just one win in each of the last 2 years.
Elsewhere tonight, it’s a Branch County matchup with Bronson at Quincy while Union City is at home against White Pigeon. In 8-Man football, Tekonsha starts its schedule at home against Burr Oak. While the majority of the varsity openers around the state are tonight, Thursday was the day set by the MHSAA to allow schools to begin their football seasons and more than a hundred games were played last night across Michigan.
The junior varsity and freshman Branch County teams started their schedules last night including a Quincy JV victory at home with the Orioles beating North Adams 49-8. Coldwater’s JV team lost at Hasting 16-14, while the freshman team lost 32-0.
In cross country Thursday, Coldwater and Quincy ran at the Adrian Invitational with the Coldwater Boys taking second place while Quincy was tenth out of 11 teams. In the girls race, Coldwater didn’t field a full team while Quincy finished fourth. Coldwater’s Zach Murphy placed third overall while also winning a medal for the Cardinals in the Boys race was Jordan Parkinson in ninth place. Quincy was paced by Brandon Gary in 14th place. On the girls side, Kathy Potter had Coldwater’s best finish in 43rd place. Leading Quincy were Gabby Porter placing 8th overall with Meri Michael in 19th place.
Last night in volleyball, Quincy picked up a pair of 2-0 wins in a tri-meet at Adrian Lenawee Christian with the Lady Orioles defeating the host Cougars and Hudson. In JV volleyball, Union City had a 1-2 record in a quad at Marshall, beating Bellevue before losing to Marshall and Olivet.
Yesterday, in junior varsity boys tennis, the Coldwater JV team opened its season with a victory at Parma Western. Scoring points for the Cardinals by winning their singles flights were Alec Keplinger, Sam Morrison, Hernan Ochoa Polanco, Blake Yates and Kyle Krzyzanski along with Dillon Gagnon and Andrew Gebbink at first doubles and Brendan Hanna and Stuart Sobeski at third doubles.
Today on the Coaches Corner, it’s Coldwater football coach Jeff Schorfhaar.
