Bluehawks gear up for the season
<p>The Thompson Falls Bluehawks run agility drills during practice. The team is preparing for the first game of the year against Plains on August 31st.</p>
THOMPSON FALLS – After losing seven seniors, the Thompson Falls Bluehawks football team is ready to take on the season despite a young team.
Setting high expectations, the season has three new seniors on their team – a chance to build and grow their team, learning together as one.
“The three seniors are first year football players so they don’t have much experience. It’ll definitely be a rebuilding year,” said Head Coach Curt Kegel. “We are setting our goals to be better every week.”
Kegel said his goals are to improve on a weekly basis and currently the Bluehawks football team is working on agility, footwork, and conditioning.
“We are trying to get better everyday,” said Kegel.
The importance of keeping one’s team in shape and in competing condition is integral to the ongoing competition that is about to ensue between the different schools.
On the third day of practice, conditioning skills were the main focus of the Bluehawks football team, a team that was still figuring out what they were capable of.
The football team was hard at work pushing tires for strength conditioning, running sprints for short distances and busied themselves on leg exercises, strengthening their muscles.
This year two new coaches joined the Bluehawks team, Jake Mickilson who will be training the receivers and defensive backs, and Austin Ouellette who is busying himself with the offensive and defensive line.
Back another year is Jared Koskela, a man in charge of the linebackers and running backs.
The first game for the Bluehawks is against the rival team Plains.
Kegel explained this year is the first year Class B will have a chance to play nine games instead of eight, a change that started the team’s practice a couple days earlier.
Class A and AA have been playing nine games a season and this year is the first season that allows Class B to do the same.
In their third day of practice, the team was hard at work on Monday practicing conditioning and team strengthening.
Thompson Falls will play Plains twice this year – a change that is new to the season.
“Instead of having a pregame scrimmage, I called up Plains and set up a game with them,” said Coach Kegel.
According to Kegel, the two teams will be quite similar for the upcoming football season.
Kegel stated the games against Plains should be good and he is expecting to see a lot of competition between the two schools.
The Bluehawks first game is on Saturday August 31st against Plains and is followed by an away game at Cut Bank. Thompson Falls will then host Choteau on their home turf on September 13.