(upbeat music) - I kinda think a Shelley is like the Justice League. Everyone talks about, you know, Brinley Cannon, but they're kinda like the Justice League. They just have a nice set of characters that back 'em up. - When it comes to high school sports, East Idaho never gets its due. - I ran into Jeremy Hess, the A.D. of Grace Luther, and you know, he was just excited, and then, you know, I'm just talking to him, and they go, "We have seven girls, so just amazing." - But the East Idaho PrepCast has changed that, covering the biggest sports stories from Salmon, all the way down to Bear Lake. - And again, you know, Grace is always that team just kinda lurking like, "Yeah, there's Grace." They, you know, they don't have social media, but you know what, they have footballs, they got grass, they got hats, and they use all those very well. - It's the East Idaho PrepCast with Sean Kane on IdahoSports.com. - What's up, East Idaho fans? This is the East Idaho PrepCast on IdahoSports.com, bringing you the top high school athletic stories from districts five and six of the great state of Idaho. You can watch this show on IdahoSports.com's YouTube channel, Facebook, Page or X account, and of course, you can listen to this show on IdahoSports.com or wherever you download and subscribe to podcasts. Don't forget to like and subscribe to the East Idaho PrepCast. So you know when the show drops and you can join the conversation, which is the favorite part of this show, which is our favorite part of the show. I am Joel Richardson, I'm joined by the East Idaho expert and insider and world traveler, Sean Kane. Sean, what's going on? Welcome back to the USA, man. - Oh man, you're way better than Brandon. No, I'm just joking, but. You know it. - No, yeah, I'm just trying to adjust back to the timeframe here. It was about nine hour difference. I was in Finland Sunday and I'm back just trying to adjust, school getting started. Just kind of ready to put to sleep the summer and get the fall sports going. New little Steph Curry there. - I love it. I'm speaking of the Steph Curry. Wow, what an Olympic shot. What was your favorite part of the Olympics? - You know, the track and field's always really fun. You know, I got a lot, a watch, a lot of it. Kind of because I was in Finland, it was the time matched up really well. And track and field's always fun. And, but I, you know, I was kind of just captivated by the USA basketball. It was a fun kind of journey to watch, just kind of being a huge basketball fan myself. So that was kind of fun to watch. And just all the obscure stuff, but just a lot of overall great performances from the, you know, the world with them. - You mentioned the obscure stuff. That's my favorite part of the Olympics is watching like, I actually enjoy water polo, but I never watch it, right? And, or table tennis, right, ping pong, all those random sports that you would never watch otherwise. And suddenly, suddenly it's on and you can watch it as much as you want. Pretty, pretty fun. - Yeah, the sport that I cannot, has not made it big in America is team handball. So, you know, have you seen team handball? They're jumping and throwing the ball in the goal. I just, it's hard to believe that America is not on that. It seems like a game that would pick up very quickly here in America. But besides that, we got a lot of stuff going on in East Idaho, right? - Yeah, definitely. Now it's, well, we'll get right into it. But, you know, before we dive into the main course of our show, I wanted to remind our viewers, listeners, thanks for being here with us again. But those who missed episode one, this is season four, this is episode two technically, but if you missed episode one, that is where Brandon Baney said his goodbyes to the East Idaho PrepCast. He mentioned he used up all of his eligibility, Sean, including his COVID year. And he's moved on, he's got dozens of projects with Attosports.com. And he's asked me to take over, join you, Sean, on this PrepCast. And I'm just super excited, super pleased that, that, you know, they've, they've let me come on here and join you and continue highlighting the great work from the East Idaho players, coaches, and their families. Yeah, you know, he, he didn't get the NIA money or whatever he wanted to be here. So, and I, they're talking about that with, on Yappin Sports with, you know, with Lance Taylor, you know, a good East Idaho guy on their show, too, you can catch on IOSports.com as well. So, a lot of good content on IOSports right now. - It's awesome, it's just getting better. So, Brandon's asked me to fill in for him, for the foreseeable future. And, Sean, I really can't wait to get started. So, let's do it, Sean. - All right, don't be nervous. - Yeah, no, it's okay. No one can see my, the sweat dripping down my back. So, let's talk about the East Idaho PrepCast structure that we're going to try to follow moving forward, try not going to keep it 30 minutes or under. We want to talk about really three, three big topics. We want to do top team performance of the week, that could be anywhere from, from any of the fall sports, winter sports, and then the spring sports. And then we want to talk about the top individual performance. Maybe someone, maybe didn't win, or an individual performance from a golfer, or tennis player, Sean, and highlight then, maybe have them on the PrepCast for an interview. And once we do this kind of top performances team and player, we want to go into what's coming up. You know, matches, games that are coming up that weekend, or that week, and maybe make some predictions, Sean. Maybe get the conversation going. Of course, you can always drop a comment as we're live on YouTube, Facebook, X, and let us know what we're getting wrong, what we're getting right, things you want to talk about. Happy to, we want you to join the conversation, folks. So, we'll talk about what's coming up, drop some predictions, and then that'll be the show, 30 minutes. So, with that, Sean, let's get into it for our first show together. Of course, Sean, we've done a lot of broadcasting in the last couple of years. So, it just kind of fits we're doing this together, Sean. But let's get into it. There's been no high school. Obviously, there's no high school sports the last few weeks. Practices just got started two days for football, et cetera. But we did have kind of a high school type sport go down a few weeks ago, Sean. Pokey run and Rebels are champs again. On July 28th, the Idaho American Legion AA crown, the Pokey run and Rebels champs, Sean. Yeah, and Mikey Blackhawk is a coach of that. I got to talk to him about it. And they went back to back and, you know, they only brought back three starters from last year. So, you know, it was just a great performance. Mikey's Blackhawk's been involved for a long time. This is the first time of him being the head coach. He was an assistant for the running levels for a long time. And just, they just had a really great performance to go back to back. And he coaches, Mikey Blackhawk, coaches, century baseball. He helps out with football as well. But he just talked about how it was kind of cool to get all the athletes, you know, around the area of Pocatello to come together for that team and play and go back to back and just a lot of good talent. So it was a pretty, pretty, pretty sweet performance by that Legion team. Yeah, really impressive. Like you said, the repeat champs and also back to back against Corda Lane. The team from North Idaho. They won 7-6, Sean, off of a walk-off hit by a pitch. Have you ever seen that before? I don't think so, but baseball is not where they call me in for the expert here, but yeah. But yeah, it was a close game. And, you know, you had a lot of Highland players. So I'm sure some of the Corda Lane football players and Highland players were kind of mixed in there and, you know, looking to get that battle going. Yeah, totally. And we'll go right into the best individual performance. It was from that game. Of course, Mikey Blackhawk, in his interview, he said, hey, look, it was a collecting team effort. There's no kind of best player or best performance. But really, Sean, Elias Blackhawk, coach's son, correct? Yeah. He's the shortstop. He came in for one inning, top of the seventh. They had, I want to, runners, I don't know if the bases were loaded, but there was a lot of bleeding going on that top of the seventh. He comes in, Elias Blackhawk comes in, two strikeouts, Sean, to get out of the inning, to stop the bleeding and get them to the bottom of the seventh. Yeah, Elias is really good pitcher. He just then need to be the pitcher for that team with all the talent they had on it. So they come in and get that job done for him. It was really good. Yeah, Mikey would tell me who he thought had the best performance. He said it was a collective team thing, a really good coach's answer. I hope he sees this. He'll probably hit me later. But yeah, Elias had a great job. Elias is a great basketball player too. He's just, he's a great kid overall. I've got to talk to him a few times, but a great performance to come in and close that game out for the running Rebels. So congratulations to coach Blackhawk, his son, Elias Blackhawk, and all the pokey running Rebels for their Idaho American Legion, double A baseball championship. And they went up to the double A regionals in Montana and they played a couple of games up there. So congrats to them on their performance. Sean, fall sports, let's move into what's coming up. Fall sports, like we said, we are deep into practices. The week before school starts, two days for football, cross country, golf, swimming. What am I missing, Sean? Cross country, I already said cross country. - Volleyball. - Volleyball, thank you. Women's volleyball, girls volleyball. They're all deep into practices as school is about to start. And games start next week. Sean, I think the first game is first match. Next week is on the 20th for golf. So what we want to do here is for the next little bit, we want to talk, we want to break down each sport, we want to talk about who to watch. Sean and I are going to pick one team from each fall sport. So football, golf, soccer, girls, boys, swimming, girls, boys, girls, volleyball, cross country. And we're going to talk about what team we think is interesting going into this fall season. It may not be the best team or the team that we think is going to win at all, but an interesting team that we're going to be following. So Sean, let's get started. Let's go start in alphabetical order. Let's go to football. Sean, who do you think is interesting going into this fall season in football? - Oh man, you know, there, he was looking at this earlier and you know, there's a lot of kind of teams. And so I'm going to have to give you a couple. I definitely think Rigby High School in the 6A Division is going to be kind of a team to keep an eye on, not that they aren't always, you know, Monty Morell is on their team now from Skyline, a really good running back. Me and you've got a chance to broadcast him a few times. He's phenomenal to watch and Rigby brings back a lot of offensive defensive line guys that are D1 caliber. So that'll be a good team to watch. I also kind of like Teton. Teton is a team, it kind of sticks out to me that might make a run. You've got that conference with Teton, Sugar and Fremont and man, all three of those teams could make the playoffs. So yeah, those are kind of some teams to think about. And, you know, kind of some other, other kind of my dark horse kind of thing. I think Blackfoot might be a team to watch out for and five a coming off kind of a tough year, but they've got a lot of people coming back. They got a first year head coach. Blackfoot might be a team to watch too as well. And then I guess I got one more. As I start thinking about this, I got a lot. I also think it's six a Madison might be a team to watch too. You've got their coach, it's his fourth year. He's got his first senior class. So they've got kids, he's been coaching for four years, coming in and that might be a team to watch. But that's definitely a tough conference with Highland, Rigby, Thunder Ridge. It's just, it's a tough conference day and day out. - Yeah, and it'll be interesting. You mentioned Highland, they're not returning a ton of starters. We'll see what they can do. They always, they have great coaching, amazing coaching up there in Highland. But it'll be interesting to see how they can recover from all their lost players, from graduation, from moving. - 22, they're replacing 22. They do have a quarterback from Marsh Valley, Keaton Belknap is gonna be, he transferred in. And I think that will be good, a good role. I think it's just offensively, Highland is probably just gonna look different, you know, than what we're used to. But, you know, he can't ever count out at Highland Ram team. - Absolutely. You also mentioned Rigby, I'll just, they were shouted out on the North Idaho prep cast today. And they were talking about, you know, Rigby can, can they take down someone like a court of lane who is looking to get back to the championship game? So yeah, I love those picks. Rigby, Teton, Madison, Blackfoot, good stuff. Sean, I also cheated a little bit if you don't mind. (laughs) I couldn't pick one team from football. Sean, the new conference, the 3A. 3A is gonna be insane. You got the new 3A Southeast Idaho conference newcomers, Declo Wendell, plus the 3A that's the 3A SEIC, which is already, the top two or three are always kind of jumbled. And then you have the new conference, which the, those top three teams, North Fremont, Ryrie, and I'm spacing a Firth. I think any of those three teams could do something this year, that they may not all win at all, but it's gonna be tight. Those top three teams in the new conference in the top three in the SEIC. I can't wait to see what 3A does. It's gonna be a battle. It's kind of like, you know, those years when the Pac-12 and college football, they would just kind of eat each other. I'm assuming we're gonna see the same thing in the new conference and the SEIC. - Yeah. - Those are my picks, Sean. - Yeah, and I think that's gonna be, that's a good slice of what's to come with some of the conference classification changeings. So, you know, I have to remember to say 6A and 5A and 4A. So, you know, when you say 3A, that I'm thinking something else. So that's something new for everyone to kind of think about this year. For sports is how the classification looks and some of those conference changes being like, yeah, and we know Declo, that's a tough team. So it should be really interesting to see where everyone fits in in their new digs. - Yeah, can't out wait for that football season. So there we go, we got Rigby, Teton, Madison, Blackfoot, and then the 3A, the 3A schools in Districts 5 and 6. Can't wait to see what those teams do. Let's go on to golf, Sean. Who are you looking? Who's your, who's an interesting team that you're looking at in golf or individuals? - You know, golf, golf, it's kind of hard to gear 'cause it's again one of those kind of team things, but if you have one ringer, it really makes a difference. Aberdeen's been good at golf every once in a while. They've had some good players. I think, you know, Century might have a good boys golf team. They've been pretty strong and you've got some upperclassmen now that have played. It'll be interesting. I don't have one that sticks out to me big time right now. I'll have to see how it plays out. - Yeah, sounds good. I kind of cheated. I'm looking at Thunder Ridge boys just because that Justin Anderson kid, he was tied for ninth last year at State, Sean. And I think his crew, I think they got top 10 at say. I know there were some ties in that top 10, but with Justin Anderson and he was just in the tournament a few weeks ago, did really well there. I think you may have won it or he was like top three. I think he meddled, yeah. So I'm really looking at, you mentioned those ringers in golf. Thunder Ridge has that ringer in Justin Anderson. So I'm really interested to see what Thunder Ridge can do. As again, they were top 10 last year at State. Very curious to see how they perform this year in 2024. Those are the teams we're looking at for golf. Let's go on to soccer, Sean. Who's interesting for you? You can go girls or boys or both. Who are you looking at for soccer? Who's interesting? - I'm gonna go boys and I'll kind of do the hometown home or thing on it, but essentially boys, you've got a lot of guys coming back playing really well. You got Daniel McGee kind of leading the defense back there, sweeper. They've had a really good off season practicing their coach, Jomshi Rumiani. They're doing some a little different century where he's kind of the director of operations of soccer. So he's kind of coaching the boys and girls team, but there is a head, there's a head girls coach, but he's kind of directing both and he's pretty good at what he does. But I think century boys will be a team to watch for. They kind of have to just get over that hump at state. They've made it to state, but not gotten that win, but they'll definitely be a team I look at doing well this year. - And for boys for myself, I'm looking at Thunder Ridge last year, man. They were what, I think they were the one seed. Yeah, one seed in that state. They were bounced in both rounds, Sean. So I know Thunder Ridge is looking to get back. I'm curious to see how they bounce back. Can they get to the tournament and can they do better than they did last year? I'm told they should be a really good team. So very curious to see how Thunder Ridge does with boys. With girls, I'm looking at Pokey, Sean. Again, hometown, for those who don't know, Sean and I both live in Pocatello. I'm more West Pocatello and Sean is up there more East Pocatello, but those girls, again, they were also that one seed. They ended up getting third at state. They were bounced in the second round by Sandpoint who ended up winning the whole thing. I wanna say the Pocatello girls will win district, but they've lost some key players from last year. They have a solid black, a solid back line returning. I wanna say two out of the three, if not all three of those girls are returning. And then Pokey, they always get some new players in. They have some good coaching. So very curious to see how Pokey, how they respond after their third place finish at state. Looks like we have a few comments, Sean from our listeners. Love the comments. Let's get the conversation rolling. First one from Sam Buffington on X. He gives us a little shout a little wave from Sam Buffington. Hello, Sam. Sam today was at the North Idaho IHSAA media days up there with Brandon and friends. Is South Fremont, his question is, is South Fremont a part of the new 3A? No, they are 4A along with Teton and the big bad boy themselves, Sugar Salem, the diggers. So they're part of that 3A, Sean, or 4A, excuse me. Yeah, 4A Mountain Rivers Conference. And which I think that will be one of the toughest conferences, maybe in football this season with just three teams, but three really good teams that have potential make it a run at state. So it'll be interesting to see how that goes. Definitely thanks for that comment, Sam. Let's keep them going. Let's keep the conversation going. What do you like? What do you don't like about our interesting picks so far? Again, these picks are not necessarily winners, but teams that we're going to be looking at in this new season. Let's go ahead, Sean. Oh, and then I was going to say, too, District 6, 5A, Idaho Falls girls, they're kind of a dark horse. They bring back a lot of seniors, bring back old team that made a pretty good run. So for my girls pick, I'd kind of keep an eye out for those Idaho Falls girls. All right, I'm trying to write these names down, Sean, so we can try to tag these teams. If it's possible, once the podcast ends, we share it. We tag these teams and they can know that we're following them. And I know teams can say, "Hey, we're right here, follow us." And of course, we're going to try to follow everyone and try to get everyone shout out on the prep cast. But again, these are teams that, for some reason, we feel like there's some interest there and we want to see what they do this season. All right, Sean, I know you love swimming. Any pick for girls, boys, swimming? - Swimming's hard. In Pocatello, there's like one pool. I know most of the high schools have been practicing outside at the outside at Ross Park. It's swimming just tough. For East Idaho, I think the swimming kind of starts in District 6 and Idaho Falls. Idaho Falls is always a really strong skyline. Those are kind of the teams to watch. There are some strong swimmers from Highland and Pocatello and Century. But I think where you're going to kind of see probably the best results later on this season is probably going to come out of Idaho Falls area. - Yeah, I 100% agree. I'm looking at skyline for both boys and girls. Gonna be interested to see what they do last year at state. They got fourth and the girls got 12th. Girls retained most of their talent. The boys lost a lot of their top swimmers. So I'm very curious to see how skyline does. But no, you're, I think you're right. I do swim with some of these kids. So when I do these swim workouts, the adults will swim in the early and the kids will come in. And as I've swim with some of these high schools, they're good, they're fast. But like you're right, Sean, there's really one, maybe two pools here versus up in Idaho Falls. There's just, there's just more ability to get those workouts and get that swimming in. So I think you're right. The top swimming does start up in Scotland. But watch out, Pocatello had a really nice season. Those girls had a very surprisingly good season. So they're kind of my, my dark horse, if you will, to watch for, for swimming. Okay, Sean, we got a few more sports to go. Girls volleyball. Peg Peterson Invitation is next week, the 23rd of the 24th. Sean, who are you looking at for a girls volleyball this season? Who's interesting to you? - Well, everyone, well, not everyone, but a lot of my sources say that Madison's gonna win state. So you can put it on the record, but Madison wins state at six A. But I think there's just, there's a lot of good teams, you know, Marshvad or Milad's always really good, you know, like Milad's good. I think there's, there's a lot of parity. I think if we look at five A district five, you have Pocatello who made the state for the first time. And I don't know, it was like 20 years. They bring back a lot of those girls, they'll be good. Central be good, Preston will be working. And then you go up to district six, five A, it's just always, it's always really strong, you know, between Blackfoot, Skyline, you have, you know, Shelly's always good too. But I think the team to kind of watch out for in East Idaho right now would probably be that Madison team. - Yeah, it's a great, great pick. I'm looking at a lot further down the classification scale, Sean, Grace Lutheran, one A, right? We even have a little recording, a little snippet, right? - Yeah. - On the intro about Grace Lutheran, people don't know about Grace Lutheran. If we have folks on here who have never, who don't know much about idle sports, just give us a little intro on Grace Lutheran. - It's just a small, small private school. I mean, I could walk there from where I live. It's Jeremy Hess, athletic director. They, you know, usually don't have very many students on their teams, you know, if it's a basketball team, they might have seven. If it's a volleyball team, like in my little intro, they might have six. So they have to work really hard. And the problem with it being so small is the kids graduate and it's almost like you start over every year. Like you almost have a new start over with a new group every year, which is 'cause with the turnover and not having that many players. But the real nice thing Grace Lutheran does is they'll find a kid who's maybe played or had some experience, maybe not bring them in, kind of show them the ropes and do some good coaching and they get the most out of what they have there at that school for sure. - And this year, Sean, they are gonna do that. I think they're gonna compete for a district and state title. They won district last year, Sean. And they were third at state with very few numbers, like you say. And this year, going along with what you said, they return a strong senior class and they have a few talented newcomers coming in. So they don't have that complete, you know, overhaul that they usually have with that strong senior class returning. So this might be the year for Grace Lutheran. There's a lot of great talent and one across Idaho. Again, the classifications have changed. And we'll talk about that if you don't have, if you haven't looked at the IHSAA website, they have all the classifications laid out. We have them on out of sports.com. But we'll talk about those maybe next week and really break down where everyone's at. But just so everyone knows there, now there's just only one 1A. There used to be 1A D1, 1A D2. But now there's just 1, 1A and then 2, 3 all the way up to 6. Grace Lutheran is gonna be strong 1A contender. I wouldn't be surprised to see them do really well at state. And they're my team that I'm looking that I think is interesting. - Yeah, it'll be fun to see what happens with that group. It's always kind of a fun storyline. I think the other really good volleyball team will be Grace, the high school Grace. And I think I talk about them on the intro too. - You do. - Yeah, that will be a really tough team. They had a great year in pretty much every athletic event this year. And I think that team will be one to watch as well in another classification. - And as you said, I'm thinking about Grace Oakley. Next week, Sean, you and I are gonna be there. We'll talk about that a little bit later. But man, all the East out of teams are interesting to me. It's hard to pick one, right? - Oh yeah. - But this is just, love the East out of sports. All right, Sean, we got one more team. We promise to try to keep this time at 30 minutes. We're really close, Sean. Last but not least, last on the alphabetical list. Cross country. - Well, I guess I put him last because it was ex-country. - Ex-country. Joel's not here for his spelling prowess. - No, no, definitely not. So cross country with an ex, which is why it's at the bottom. Their first meet, Sean, is the 23rd, so that's next Friday. We're gonna be at Grace Oakley. And while that's going on, there's gonna be some cross country meets going down. Sean, who is your team of interest for cross country? You're either girls, boys, or both? - Yeah, I kind of like Idaho Falls Boys as a team kind of keep your finger on. For girls, you know, you kind of always, a team that's always in the mix is Soda Springs, or maybe even Preston. Preston, they had some good competitors, they had some good competitors last year in the distance. And so I'd maybe, maybe Preston kind of throw that out there as a dark horse, but Idaho Falls Boys, of course, there's tons of, there's a ton of good runners. And, you know, they've been practicing as well. And it'll be interesting to see who kind of leads the pack, so to say, as the seasons get going. - I love it. Hey, here on East Idaho PrepCast, we love our puns. - I'm the king of them. - Thank you, Sean. I like those picks. I'm looking at Ryrie. The Ryrie girls, Sean, they took second at state last year, and they should make another one. They got a lot of runners returning. I think they had six runners, and I think all, if not most of those runners, were not seniors. So they're coming back six runners in the top 20th state. I'm looking at Ryrie. Again, they're in that new conference, that 3A, district six. So I'm looking at them to make another good run at state. And I just, yeah, I really like Ryrie, but again, that whole new conference from in all of the fall sports is gonna be really tight. Any other teams, Sean, that you're looking at in cross country? - No, that's, I will press in girls, not boys, but yeah, I don't follow as boys. I think pressing as girls, like I said, will be good, and yeah, I think Highland will have some strong runners as well, and yeah, it'll be exciting. Just a lot going on to start the year. - Yeah, it is super, super busy. Fall is a crazy time. School starting, it's got the most sports, including swimming, which I think swimming should be a winter sport, but that's for another topic another day. Sean, school starts next week. How you feeling? - Well, I feel great. I start tomorrow, so, (laughs) I mean, I was already in network Monday, and I went in today for a little bit, but I officially start the 2004-25 season tomorrow for me, and I get kind of bored over the summer, so it'll be good to get back to work. Not necessarily, I want to go back to work, but I do like working, which many people on here might not believe, but I do like working, and it's pretty fun. It's good to have some goals and some things to do, and the first of the year is usually pretty fun, exciting. So, I'm sure all the student athletes are just so excited to get back in class. - Totally. Hey, if you have anything for Sean, anything from me, any stories that you want to shout out, any players, coaches, families, from the East Idaho sports community that you feel like is not getting enough love, not enough attention, hit us up. You can hit @SeanCain182, that's your Twitter account, your X account, right, Sean? - Yep. - Perfect, and mine is Iwan Elucador. That was back in my Spanish teaching days when I made a Twitter account. It was back then back in 2013. Wow, it's been a while. Anyway, so that's my Twitter handle. You can hit me up there, you can hit up Sean and his Twitter handle. If you want to hear a story, have a story for us that you feel like we should highlight. Let us know. We want to thank our producer of the show, Brandon Baney. He's in the background doing his thing, even though he's not here on the camera, we miss him already. Thank him for helping us do some of those comments and facilitate this show. That's going to do it for us here on this episode of the East Idaho PrepCast, IdahoSports.com. Please join us next week. We'll get into some more of these sports. We'll highlight again top player, top team, and we'll talk about what's coming up that week. For Sean Caine, I'm Joe Richardson, saying be excellent to each other, and we'll see you next week on the East Idaho PrepCast on IdahoSports.com. [ Silence ]
