You'll might remember my post, or maybe you at the Yorkton Regional Raider Gridder Alumni game when Roby Sharpe suffered a broken leg in the opening minutes. I talked to Roby for the first time since the August 9th game this week, and it sounds like he'll find ANY WAY he can to get around practices beginning this weekend.
Roby Sharpe: I'm sort of laid up here for a little bit, but it won't slow me down too much, I'll be ready to go for the upcoming season. The kids are all ready to go, I talked to a lot of them, it gave me a lot of time to phone a lot of the kids anyway, or the guys on my team I should say, I shouldn't call them kids, they're young men, but I've had some time to get things organized here on that end, and we're just getting ready to kick off our season.
CS: So the injury won't effect you being at practice will it?
RS: Hopefully not. Like I said before we went on air, I rented a MediChair so that'll help me get around. I'm a little nervous of getting run over on the sidelines, I don't want one of those bohemians to run me over and break some more bones in my body, but our schedule's going to work out good for us this year. As upset as I was about it at the start with the four road games in a row in Regina, it's going to work out good for me because I can go up top and put the headset on, and I won't have to worry about getting lambasted on the sidelines.
CS: As a walk-on camp, do you expect it to be well-attended?
RS: We usually have 50 to 60 guys at the start of the season. We usually sort of weed down from there, we don't actually make any cuts on our football team, if we have too many guys, we just make practice a little harder, and then they kind of weed themselves out, you know how it works. So if we have 80 kids, we make practice really tough, and the top 50 stay. It's a nice system for me that way, we keep the good, tough, athletic kids around.
CS: You've got an exhibition game coming up already next Saturday (Aug 30 @ home, 2:00)?
RS: Exactly, we've got an exhibition game against the Park West Outlaws, they're based out of Manitoba. It's a few schools combined together to form a 12-man team, so it's a nice little warm-up to our season, and it's nice and close, so we're lucky to get that exhibition game.
CS: In terms of who you lost last year, who's back and how many aren't?
RS: You know, we lose some guys who are pretty tough to replace. We lose Cam Redl, he's 6'8.5", 285 lbs, he's gone to the Hilltops, and I know he's enjoying some success there right now, and Casey Pfiefer, same thing, he's gone to play for the Hilltops. Clayton Kruda's another one, he took a wrestling scholarship to the University of Regina, Carter Kosteniuk's off to play for the University of Manitoba Bisons. Those kind of guys are pretty tough to replace, but every year we have guys that step up to the plate. These are guys going into Grade 12 right, R.J. Skinner's a guy going into Grade 12 that we expect big things from, he's a big strong guy, and he's going to go on and play at the next level for sure. Bennett Reusch is our Quarterback, and he was setting records in the league last year as a Grade 11, so of course we expect a lot of big things from him as a Grade 12.
But the thing is, our team looks good right now, I'm gonna tell you that right now, we look good. We're going to be a good team again, we'll be right there at the top again, battling. But as we all know from watching the Roughriders, injuries play such a big part in football. It's tough to get really excited at the start of the season, we look good, I'm happy we look good right now, but we've gotta see how the season plays out, stay healthy and see where we end up.
-----------------------------
The Raider Gridders pick up their equipment today, before beginning practice tomorrow (SAT).
2008 Yorkton Regional Raider Gridder Schedule
Sat/Aug/30 vs Park West Outlaws YRHS 2:00 (Pre-Season)
Fri/Sep/5 @ Miller Marauders Mosaic Stadium 7:15
Wed/Sep/10 @ Martin Monarchs Mosaic Stadium 5:00
Wed/Sep/17 @ Johnson Wildcats Mosaic Stadium 7:15
Sat/Sep/27 @ Weyburn Eagles Weyburn 2:00
Fri/Oct/3 vs Luther Lions YRHS 2:00
Fri/Oct/10 vs O'Neill Titans YRHS 3:00
Sat/Oct/18 vs Notre Dame Hounds YRHS 2:00
======================
Baseball Canada Western Canadians
in Yorkton
Friday
Saskatoon Stallions vs Regina Athletics 4:30
Opening Ceremonies 7:00
Elmwood Giants (Manitoba) vs St. Albert Tigers (Alberta)
Saturday
Saskatoon Stallions vs St. Albert Tigers 10:00
Regina Athletics vs Elmwood Giants 1:00
Elmwood Giants vs Saskatoon Giants 4:00
St. Albert Tigers vs Regina Athletics 7:00
Sunday
Bronze Medal Game 10:00
Gold Medal Game 1:00
*if necessary* 4:00
(If first place team goes undefeated they must be defeated twice)
No comments:
Post a Comment