Patriots have options

As the comfort level grows with the Truman football team’s fast-break offense, a quarterback battle has developed.
Junior Jamie Hayes started half the games last season. However, he is being pushed for playing time by sophomore J.T. Scoch.
“Jamie is fine; he has six games of experience starting,” Truman coach Craig Lewis said. “The guy behind him (Scoch) is a sophomore and an excellent athlete. He’s one heck of a quarterback.”
While Hayes remains the starter, Lewis said it is nice to have options with the position – as well as more than one player to lead the offense if needed.
“We have two really good quarterbacks right now,” Lewis said. “That’s a really good position. It’s nice to know you have two really good players at the same time. It’s really fun at practice. It’s a good thing.”
That quarterback competition and partnership is just part of the upbeat mood in Patriots camp.
“All in all we feel solid with what we’re doing,” Lewis said. “We’ve gotten our talent level up and our size up. It makes a difference. We are definitely improved.”
That improvement will be important with another tough schedule and a tough run through the Suburban Big Six – as four of the five conference games are technically road games for the Patriots. Truman will be the visitor against new conference foe and archrival William Chrisman in the Wagon Wheel game, though the game is at Independence All-School Stadium on Oct. 10.
The Patriots are also in a district with Raytown, Kansas City Northeast and an improved Raytown South team.
“We have a good district and conference,” Lewis said. “We’re looking forward to it. One of our goals is to win conference and come out of districts. We’re go to play very hard and very physical.”
TROJANS NUMBERS UP: St. Mary’s football head coach John Gresham liked what he saw when he walked on the practice field for the first time earlier this month.
Instead of having only players numbering in the middle 20s, he saw more than 30 players coming out for his team. And, as of now, that number is 38.
“The two biggest things I see (improving) this year are leadership and our overall size, not just in physical size, but the numbers we have out,” Gresham said. “My first two years we had only 20-something guys each year, but this year we’ve got 38 guys out.”
And that isn’t the only reason for optimism. Many of those 38 return with a lot of on-field experience as the Trojans try to reverse a losing trend in recent years, including a 1-8 mark last season.
“It feels pretty good to have a strong upper class now,” Gresham said. “We’ve got a lot more upperclassmen now, and it will help us out quite a bit.
“The last few years, having so few seniors, we got pushed around quite a bit. When you have a 14-year-old lining up across from an 18-year-old, it puts you at a disadvantage. We had only one senior last year, but now we’ve got the guys who have been in the trenches. That experience factor helps a lot – especially with the younger kids. Those older kids can teach the younger kids, and we didn’t have that before.”
It also means that Gresham, in his third year in charge of the program, can field a junior varsity team for the first time.
“That’s a big deal for us,” the coach said. “That means the young kids can line up with someone their same age and have a chance to learn the game instead of lining up against someone twice as big. This will help us build a program.”
JAGUAR TICKETS ON SALE TUESDAY: Tickets for the Blue Springs South football team’s nationally televisied game against Rockhurst on Aug. 31 will go on sale Tuesday at the high school.
Ticket sales begin at 7 a.m. at South’s activities office. Cost is $5 for adults, $4 for students in grades K-6 and free for children younger than kindergarteners and senior adults age 62 and older.
Tickets also will be available  at the gate for the same prices.
The game, which will be televised on ESPN, will begin at 11 a.m. Gates open at 9:30 a.m.
 
Karl Zinke contributed to this report.