By Micah Cho, WKTV Intern
ken@wktv.org
When Tri-unity High School head football coach Tim Heath talks about his 8-man football team, now in its third year of existence, and its home opener against Ashley, he sounds like all football coaches talking football.
After all, just because they play on a smaller field without two lineman and one position player, as compared to the more common 11-man football, football is still football.
So Coach Heath, in an interview with WKTV this week, talked about his team’s strengths and his dangerous Week 2 opponent as the Defenders (1-0) prepared for their Thursday, Aug. 30, clash with Ashley (0-1) at a field at 5651 Gezon Court, Wyoming. The game is WKTV’s featured game of the week, and will be rebroadcast on WKTV cable channels.
“I expect a big, fast football game,” Heath said. Ashley has a “very quick quarterback, on film. The quarterback likes to put the ball in the air. They have very quick and tall receivers who like to catch the ball. They’re bigger than we are defensively.”
This is Ashley’s first year as an 8-man football squad. Tri-unity is in its third year but advanced to the state semifinals in 2016, and finished 11-1 overall, before going 6-4 a year ago.
Tri-unity opened the season with an impressive road win, 82-0, at St Joseph Lutheran, while Ashley lost to AuGres-Sims, 56-12, on the road last week.
Coach Heath’s team has 13 players this year, so many play both ways. But he thinks more about his teams strengths than their numbers.
“We’re very good defensively and we’re fast,” he said. “We’re fast to the ball. A lot of team speed. And something you just can’t trade, experience. We returned seven of eight starters this year from a team that lost in the first round of the playoffs last year.”
These and other sports events are cable broadcast either live, immediately after the event and/or in rebroadcast, on Comcast WKTV Channel 25 and on AT&T U-Verse Community 99.
WKTV’s featured football games are rebroadcast on the night of the game (Thursday or Friday) at 11 p.m. and Saturday starting at 11 a.m. See WKTVjournal.org/sports for complete schedules.
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