Fall Sports Preview
          The Mount Michael athletic department has made some changes this year entering into the new fall sports season. The football team has worked a lot harder during the summer than they have in the past. The cross-country team has more kids then it ever has had before and has moved into class B. The tennis team is looking very competitive again this season with four of six top players returning.
          The football team has done a lot of different things this year than it has in the past. The football team attended a five-day camp together at Wayne State College. Head Coach Tom Ridder commented, “It was a good opportunity and created good team unity.” The team did conditioning throughout the summer one to two times a week. Ridder said, “The majority of the kids worked very hard this summer.” Not only did the team work hard during the off-season, they also experienced once again the wrath of two-a-days. This years team practiced twice a day, right after school and then once again after dinner. Junior Fullback Ben Suing commented on two-a-days, “The coaches worked us hard, and I think that will show in our first game against Syracuse.” Ridder’s goal for two-a-days were to learn the offense, the majority of the defense, get the players in shape, and get them excited for the season. Coach Ridder’s goals for this season are to get better every week. He then went on to say, “If we do that, our record will take care of itself.” This year’s team has 33 kids on varsity. They will have to deal with replacing most of the backfield from last year. The team looks very promising. They have been practicing five times a week with a scrimmage on Saturday and will be ready to play the Syracuse Rockets on Friday, September 5. Senior Captain Pat Tefft said, “Over all the coaches have worked us hard, but thats what we need. I think everyone will see that all that hard work will pay off in the season.”
          This year Coach Gathje will be entering his 13th year as the Mount Michael Cross Country Coach. He commented that they have been moved up to Class B this year. The reason for this is because Mount Michael has had a two-year contract with Waterloo, this being the second year. This means that the Nebraska Sports Activities Association (NSAA) has to count Waterloo’s enrollment as well as Mount Michael. Coach Gathje seemed upset with this especially because there are zero kids from Waterloo this year participating in Cross Country. Due to this inconvenience Mount Michael will most likely not have another Co-op team in the near future. Also, the team will have to work a lot harder. Gathje said, “It will be a lot tougher at state this year, but we have always competed against class B schools anyway. The top Class C schools can usually compete pretty well with the top class B schools.” Senior Jordon Dorsey commented in a similar way saying, “The top class C teams are comparable to the top class B teams. The Centinnial Conference is really good.” This year 50 kids signed up for cross-country including almost half of the sophomore class. In the previous years the team has had about 40 kids go out. Gathje’s team goals are the same as always, to be the best possible team they can be, and to make it to state. He said, “It would be nice to go to state, we just have to take care of things that we can control.” When asked about Dorsey, who placed 5th at state last year, he replied, “I hope he runs to his potential and I think he will. I don’t have to worry about him working hard.” Dorsey broke the school record this year in the Joe Wolpert Time Trial. This is two mile race in the beginning of every season and is named after the record holder. Joe Wolpert has held the record since 1997 up until Thursday, August 28th. Jordan broke it running it in 10:45 (5 seconds better then Wolpert's.) Last year Dorsey was nine seconds short of the record. Dorsey commented, “I’m excited. I have trained hard and so has most everyone else. As for the season, I think we will be a solid team as long as we keep up the hard work.
          This years Tennis Team has been hard at work just like every one else has been. They have a very young but competitve team. Going in to his 27th year as head coach of the Tennis team, Fr. Michael Liebl commented, “We have a very young team with a lot of depth, which is good for the future.” When Liebl uses the word depth he means that the team has about 15 kids who can eventually play at the varsity level. They all have had some kind of experience in tennis before Mount Michael and can put some pace on the ball. Liebl went on to say that tennis is a sport where if you played a lot when you were young, you will be a lot better at the high school level. He also said that if you are beginning at this level and you are a basketball player you will usually pick things up pretty quick because the fundamental skills of basketball are similar to those of tennis. The differences that this years team from those in the past is they are a lot younger. As for experience only one person on the team really has a lot of experience and that is number one singles player AJ Killeen. Looking back on last year’s season Liebl said, “We are one year older and stronger.” The tennis team lost their number two singles player last year and one of their number one doubles player. However, Liebl said that he has seen improvement in this years team. Some of the tennis players went to tennis camp during the summer and Liebl said that although they might not think they are better, he can see a difference. He said he has seen improvement with in the whole squad. As for the changes this year, The team will play in the Omaha Skutt tournament. The Ralston Tournament that they usually participate in was discontinued and Skutt made one up to replace it. Also, because of the new school in Lincoln, Lincoln High dropped us and we picked up Nebraska City. The teams overall goals are to improve on their record from last year which was about 3 -10. Lieble felt pretty confident about accomplishing this goal as did Killeen. Killeen said, “We have been working hard, and I know we will be better than last year.” Liebl said that sometimes your own team will look good in practice and then when you get to the tournament they really aren’t. He said you have to see how they look in a game situation. The real test of the teams strength will be at the Omaha Skutt tournment.
          The Knight fall sport teams all look very promising. It is obvious they all have been working hard. On top of all that we have a lot of our key players back from last year in every sport. Look forward to the Knight success this year! - Matt Haas
 
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