(upbeat music) - I kinda think a Shelley is like the Justice League. Everyone talks about, you know, Brinley Cannon, but they're kind of like the Justice League. They just have a nice set of characters that back them up. - When it comes to high school sports, East Idaho never gets its due. - I ran into Jeremy Hess, the AD of Grace Luther, and you know, he was just excited. And then, you know, I'm just talking to him and he goes, 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 kind of 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 pads, and they use all those very well. - It's the East Idaho PrepCast with Sean Kane on IdahoSports.com. (upbeat music) - That's right, welcome to the East Idaho PrepCast. I'm out of hostsports.com, breaking down top stories from districts five and six of Idaho high school athletics. It's great to have you with us on this Wednesday night. It is September 18th, and it is not Taco Tuesday, and it is actually National Cheeseburger Day. What's bringing our National Cheeseburger correspondent, I mean, East Idaho expert and insider, Sean Kane. Sean, what's going on? - We're gonna start out with the top 10 cheeseburgers. No, I'm just joking. That man, that would be tough. That'd be a great poll to put on here, right? Like what's the top 10 cheeseburgers? And, you know, I don't know, cooking at home. I think it's always better. Nice pretzel roll at home, but yeah, National Cheeseburger Day, someone told me, but earlier today that McDonald's had some like 50 cents cheeseburger, so I'm sure that was very popular among the student athletes today. - Yeah, no doubt, and it's ironic, 'cause I just came back from a little to get together, and we were having tacos. Sean, tacos on a Wednesday, not Taco Tuesday, and tacos on National Cheeseburger Day. If only we knew. - I mean, you know, how far is a taco from a cheeseburger, right? You got hamburger, you got cheese, you got lettuce. This, the device that carries it is a little different, and maybe some of those toppings, but for the most part, you're putting the kind of the same toppings, maybe besides the hot sauce, but I'm gonna go, it's not too far from it, and I mean, the best thing about a cheeseburger, though, I have to say, Joel, is like a fried egg on it. - Ooh. - Yes. - So that's not being my top easily. And you don't put a fried egg on a taco, so there you go. - Yeah, it's true. Although you can't have breakfast tacos. - I will say, also, the first time I had that fried egg on a cheeseburger was in Ecuador. It was in Southern Ecuador, and they gave us this burger, and it had an egg on it, and I was like, huh? They didn't do it, changed my life, changed my life. - Yeah, once you, so I have a couple of things that I always order if I go somewhere new, like with me and some of my friends, and one, it's always, if they have a French dip, we always have to try the French dip, and also if they have some sort of burger with a fried egg, but yeah, those are some of the top things when you try new restaurants, I always go for. - Well, hey, and those are out there in Facebook, YouTube. Of course, or on Twitter, you can watch this show on idolsport.com's Facebook page, YouTube account, a YouTube channel or X account, and you can listen to the show on autosports.com wherever you get your podcasts. But if you're watching us live on Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter, hit us up in the chat. Taco or Cheeseburger, and if it's a Taco or Cheeseburger, what's your favorite here on National Cheeseburger Day? Or on Joel's Taco Wednesday. You know, Sean, before we get into the sports side, it's been a great week of sports. We have a lot of great stories to get into. We wanted to get a little serious, pull it back for a second or for a few minutes, and talk about Thunder Ridge, and the Thunder Ridge family, in essence, losing a dear soul to them. A young man, he died in a car crash on Sunday. His name was Jay Dawson Grover. He was 17, was an accident, and a car ended up going into a-- - Canal. - Canal, thank you. And he ended up passing away. He also had his younger brother with him, younger brother, and it sounds like he's gonna be okay. But he went to Thunder Ridge. He's played sports in the past. His dad is a coach for the Grid Kid family up at Thunder Ridge, and he's a good kid. The news article that talked about this on the East Idaho News, great job there covering this story by them. But they talked about how he was a true follower of Christ, and that he called home, direct quote from the news article, called home to his Heavenly Father to receive his angel wings, just a devastating loss for the Thunder Ridge family. And Sean, there's a GoFundMe account set up that you can go to. It's called the In Memory of Dawson Grover Support for his family as they go through all the expenses and grieve. So if you out there watching this, if you'd like to donate to the GoFundMe and support this family during this super, super tough time, please feel free to do that. And our hearts and our thoughts, prayers, hearts, everything goes out to this family, Sean. Yeah, big time, we'll get to it. I'll be at the Highland Thunder Ridge football game this Friday at Highland, and I was doing some game prep and talking to some Thunder Ridge coaches and gotta have kind of some tough conversations about what's going on, but just a real influential family, part of the Thunder Ridge family, tough loss for them, and grieving and all that is so difficult. But just also shows you how great your sports community and your school community can be and how you can pull together and things like that. So it's really tough and I really feel for the Thunder Ridge community, but also it's just really motivating for me as a coach to talk to some of these other coaches and just how they talk about how great they were. Because I'm gonna tell you, the best thing you get to do as a coach is to get a talk about how great your players and people you know are in the right, letters of recommendation and things like that. That's the best part of coaching, I think, and this is a tragic loss. Also, it's also a good shining light on how great the Thunder Ridge community up in Idaho Falls is. Yeah, I've always been impressed by that Thunder Ridge community, and so again, wanna support them and Sean, yeah, you will be there broadcasting that game. Please let us know next week how that goes. And it can be really hard. We talk about these players and how hard they work. But these players also have lives and they have friends and this can be really hard for them. So I'm really looking forward to seeing what they do on Friday and how they remember their friend, their former teammate, Dawson Grover. With that, Sean, let's get into some of the great highlights and highlight some of these kids and their just wonderful accomplishments. From this past week, we had some great accomplishments, some great performances. But these, for our athlete, our East Idaho PrepCast, athletes of the week, we chose two. They come from the same team, Sean, Craig Yoast and Rusty Hatch for them. Yeah, go for it. Oh, north of Jim. And we talked about these guys before and how they could have a definitely Craig Yoast could have been a performer of the week, not too long ago and maybe every week. Right. But these guys, these two guys, Craig Yoast, Rusty Hatch, which I mean, come on, Rusty Hatch has got to be the best football name combined for basically 300 yards and six TDs in this game and just unbelievable stats. And you knew their names were going to come up and just North Jim doing some great things right now, a really strong team. Yeah, and you mentioned those six touchdowns. Hatch even went two for three. North Jim, they're not known, Sean, for throwing the football but got to talk to their coach, Coach Hatch, the father of Rusty Hatch. Again, great name, Coach Hatch. We'll give some credit to your spouse as well, for sure. 99% of the credit, actually. But yeah, he ended up scoring a couple touchdowns, but he also went two for three with 33 yards in the air and a throwing touchdown. Coach Hatch said, look, teams know we're going to run the ball. We love the option. We love the triple option. But so teams are going to stack the box. They want to keep those teams honest. So the fact that Rusty has got a bit of an arm and can throw the ball, that's going to suit them as they move forward. Another kind of cool piece from North Jim. Obviously, Craig Yoast, Rusty Hatch, our players, our athletes of the week, but North Jim was able to suit up 10 guys, Sean, for the first time the most since 2022. I mean, someone, I guess, got a break. (laughing) I mean, or maybe, but yeah, I mean, that's great. You know, a lot of times, some of those eight-man schools, they either have to combine or go away. So, you know, just have enough to play is a good job. And, you know, and just with those areas, with smaller areas, small communities, it's just not how it used to be. But yeah, you know, and having a season like North Jim is now, it's probably going to draw it, you know, maybe a few more. Maybe they'll get the 12. Who knows? You know, we have a whole year to see what happens. - Well, what attracts crowds, winning. And so, which also attracts players to come play in your organization. So, congratulations to Craig Yoast and Rusty Hatch from North Jim for being our East Idaho PrepCast, athletes of the week. Team of the week this week, Sean, Blackfoot football. Last year, they did not win a game. Now, they're two-in-one with wins over Preston and Pokey Sean. Is it time to call Blackfoot the Southeast Idaho Conference 5A Champs? - Oh, well, I don't know about that. But, I mean, that District 6 is going to be, I mean, I don't know, you've got a lot going on there. But what a job, you know, first year head coach coming in, Blackfoot doesn't win a game. They already have two wins, one being this Pokey game that went down to the wire. We're talking overtime, going for two, punching it in, kind of, you know, I didn't get to see it. But what it sounded like is basically, they knew they were going to run it. And sure enough, Blackfoot is able to punch it in for that two-point conversion in one of the games. So, yeah, the Broncos, you know, doubling up their wins and beating a team, you know, the Pokey Sean Thunder that are not that far removed from the semi-finals of the state championship. So, you know, good job for them and what a turnaround for the Broncos program. Yeah, 29, 20, and overtime, Pokey was ranked at, by the media poll number five, coaches ranked them at number four. Pokey finally tied the game with 6.40 remaining. But in the end, Blackfoot comes out with the victory. Really, really cool by Blackfoot, especially the week before after getting blanked by Skyline, 40 plus zero. That's got to be huge, that's got, it's amazing to turn that around, especially, you know, of some teams around Idaho that once they start losing, they're kind of like, well, this is what we do, we lose. So, for a team like Blackfoot who's lost every game last year, to lose badly against Skyline and to come back and beat Pocatello in overtime on a running play, that Pocatello knew was coming, is phenomenal. So, congrats to Pocatello, yeah, congrats to Blackfoot for keeping their tenacity and not giving in to that kind of losing mentality and getting that win in overtime. Yeah, Tanner Ellis on that run at the end and he had 28 carries, 140 yards and just a great job. And yeah, it's tough. And I mean, no surprises, Skyline's good guys, right? You know, I mean, they know Blackfoot knows as well as anyone in the East Idaho, Skyline's going to be a tough opponent, but how you bounce back is so important. And Blackfoot went ahead and bounced back and got the win over Pocatello. So, it'll be interesting to see as they get in the conference play, what happens with the Broncos and just a very tough district six with Hillcrest. You got an Idaho Falls team that's, you know, out doing a little better job than they have last year as well. And just, you've got a lot of teams and Hillcrest lurking. Yeah. And when I said, when I said five day champs, I meant five SCIC, so Southeast Idaho conference champs. They beat Pocatello, they beat Preston, all they have to beat a century, but they won two out of three. They're the five SCIC champs, Sean. Yeah, there you go. There you go. All right, so yeah, go ahead. No, no, I'm just agreeing with you. So yeah, congrats to Blackfoot football. There are Idos East Idaho PrepCast team of the week. All right, let's recap some of the biggest matches, games, tournaments from this week. First, Sean, Tiger Gris invite Freeman Park. This past, I believe, this past Friday, out of sports.com broadcast that if you want to go back and watch any great performances, any of your runners, seeing them cross that finish line or other points in the race, you can go back and watch that on Idosports.com. But it was held in Freeman Park up in Idaho Falls. Huge invite for cross country. 2,700 runners from 51 schools from Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, and Sean, Alberta, Canada. I had to look it up. What's this CA and CA is Canada? How does school from Alberta come and run? Hey, we can't go over the entire, you know, all the results, but Marlowe Hereford's recap in atosports.com is phenomenal. Go on atosports.com, look up the Marlowe Hereford's recap and you'll be able to read all of the great performances, times from all the classifications, or excuse me, from all the races. But we want to highlight a few here. Rocky Mountain's Cody Lucas, he got first with 1601. That's his back-to-back victory, Sean. He won last year. And then Rocky, back-to-back champs of the tire gris invite with 24 points this year. They had six runners in the top 20. That's amazing. Rocky Mountain, the likely winner of the six-day title this year. - Yeah, hard to, that's a bet you probably make right now, right, that Rocky Mountain's gonna take away the six-day boys cross country title. But yeah, for how many different schools and how large this is to have six runners in the top 20, just shows the strength of your program. So a good job by Rocky Mountain, I guess. - Yeah, and then I guess, that's right. This is the East Idaho Prep Test. So here we go, East Idaho teams, Teton. They did well at Zane Lundquist from Teton. He was the fourth fastest overall boy in the invite with a 1623, really fast from Teton Zane Lundquist. So congrats to him. Let's go over some of the top 10 boys from East Idaho, Sean. Sixth was Corbin Johnston from North Fremont. Ninth was Peyton Bird from Rigby. 10th was Ethan Hanson from Yernecker with Sean from Sentry. And all these guys were 16 plus in their times. So good job to those top 10 boys. Some of the girls from East Idaho that ran well. Brimley, William, we've talked about her a few times on the Prep Test. She's from Madison. She ran in 1946 and she was the sixth fastest overall girl, so congrats to Brimley, William. Other top 10 girls was in seventh place. Jaycee Jensen from Idaho Falls did a really good job. And then we had other East Idaho highlights from the invite. Grace is senior, Callie Coleman. She won the Varsity B Girls with the 2001. So congrats to her. Ryrie. Ryrie girls are back-to-back title winners in Varsity B. They won the tire-grids invite last year in their Varsity B race. They won it again this year, Sean. And then Sugar doing work again, the boys won Varsity B with their senior Dylan Ball winning Varsity B individual 17-14. So we did have some great performances from East Idaho team, Sean. Yeah, just a good job. Corbin Johnson from North Fremont is someone we'll be talking about later as we get towards state and districts for cost country for sure. A tough runner, Ethan Hanson has been doing a good job. He pulls double duty. I believe he also plays soccer for centuries. So that's always interesting to see how these dual athletes can compete. I just don't know how you could do something in another sport and then run cross-country. I barely can get home every day with the amount of energy I have, but so good job for them. And yeah, it's good. It's a huge-- it's one of the biggest invites you're going to have. You know, you have 50 plus teams. And all that was on itosports.com. So what a great event up at Tiger Grizz. Yeah, the boys did a good job broadcasting up, but especially great job by all the runners from East Idaho at the Tiger Grizz invite. Let's get into some golf. We had the high country conference Chapman at Driggs, Sean Madison, Rigby, Blackfoot, Highland Hillcrest, IF and Shelley all participated in the Chapman format. For those who don't know, you have girls teamed up with boys. Well, I mean, for this, they did. But you can have-- you have a partner. And then you got nine holes. And you're kind of flipping back and forth. You shoot two balls. You get to choose the best ball, so on and so forth. But for this Chapman format that boys teamed up with girls, Rigby, Sean, got second by one stroke. Braxton McKenna tied for first, and Logan Kinsley from Rigby tied for second. So good job to those folks, those players, and good job to Rigby for winning-- for getting second by that one stroke. Yeah, it's kind of a cool format. So I feel like we've gotten more golf on than we ever have in the last couple of years. And so I'm really thankful for everyone sharing and posting those pictures for get those golf results. Totally really appreciate that. We love to highlight all the sports. And we'd rather highlight all those sports than just the football or the soccer that we tend to get. So yeah, thank you for posting your pictures, answering our messages when we're asking you for names and final results. That was girls golf. Let's do a little boys golf then, that the Blackfoot invite-- this was, I believe, last Thursday. It was a 14-school tourney at the Blackfoot golf course. Sean, it was rainy. It was cold and windy. But of course, who else wins in those kinds of elements? But a really good team. Thunder Ridge pulls first. Yeah, Thunder Ridge golf. We've talked about them all year. They're the team to beat, I think, boys-wise in East Idaho right now, Justin Anderson. And they're just doing great things and just doing a great job in another tournament win. I'm excited to see where Thunder Ridge goes at state. Yeah, me too. And the Gate City invite for boys golf. That was yesterday. Century 1, Sean, with a score of 315. Talk about those first and second place golfers. Oh, yeah. I guess they golf. It's two brothers, Leah McGee, the younger, and Leah McGee, a sophomore, Daniel McGee, the senior. Yeah, I love that. The brothers often. Yeah, the younger brother won. I don't know how that went over at the house. But yeah, a nice job. And talk about rain. That was Tuesday, yesterday as we're broadcasting on Wednesday and yesterday was terrible. I'm not quite sure how they golfed. It was raining pretty hard at century. And they were at Riverside, which is not too far from century high school. But it was raining pretty hard. But they did pretty well. They got first. And those are good scores, 73 and 74 to shoot that. That's just great. So congrats to just being able to golf that day. They also, these guys, the century guys, also played a soccer game later that night. They're both dual sport athletes as well. Century played, Preston on the turf in the lights. And I think it kind of didn't rain as much later on the evening, but it wasn't extremely warm. But they got a five. Nothing went over Preston. And you know, Pejia Weed had a hat trick. He had a hat trick. So one, another one of our favorite names. But yeah, a lot of athletes in East Idaho doing dual duty. And you know, good for them. I'm hoping they're drinking a lot of chocolate milk. I love that. Well, let's go in right into the boy's soccer that was going on. So century did be-- yeah, they beat Preston 5-0 Pejia Weed. First half hat trick, Sean, and an assist. So congrats to Pejia Weed. And congrats to, again, having the best name of East Idaho high school athletics. And then on Monday, Highland played Thunder Ridge. Highland lost 2-0 to Thunder Ridge. So Thunder Ridge soccer, we talked with them at the beginning of the year, as a team we were watching. And Thunder Ridge trying to make sure they get over that hump, especially as they get into-- we're about half way through the season, Sean. And as long as Thunder Ridge can keep the momentum going, that should bode well for state. Again, last year, they kind of sputtered at state. So more wins for Thunder Ridge the better, I would say. So good job to Thunder Ridge beating a good Highland team 2-0. And then on Tuesday, the IF boys in the Emotion Cup took on Skyline. Not the Emotion Bowl, but the Emotion Cup, right? And IF boys just demolished Skyline 5-1, Cooper Slite, 2 goals, goalkeeper Josh Peterson saved the PK. Yeah, I'm a little surprised by that score. I've seen the Skyline boys team live in person. They're good. They're a good team. But Idaho Falls, they were good last year. They're just kind of-- again, I think you get so many good teams in that District 6 that sometimes you kind of just forget, oh, yeah, then there's Idaho Falls. That's going to be able to compete. And it's made it to state. And yeah, it's going to be tough, but that's a big time win. And sometimes soccer, though, the score doesn't give you the whole story, right? The game could have been closer than that score. Soccer is one of those games where it's just a couple mistakes. Could be the whole difference, even though you really were the best team the whole time. But yeah, it makes it fun to watch. And congrats, Idaho Falls. And then Sugar Salem yesterday in that similar weather, but probably a little bit colder. They defeated American Falls 4 to 1. That game was at Sugar Salem. Of course, American Falls, a good team this year. Sugar Salem, obviously, we've talked about them as a team of the week on this prep cast. And Sugar Salem is awesome. So Sugar Salem, defeating an American Falls team that is surging. And then we had marked as Marsh Valley at Aberdeen as the game we were watching, but we haven't gotten a score yet, Sean, unless you have one from Marsh Valley Aberdeen. I do not at this time, so we'll check back on that. Yeah, sounds good. Let's move into Girls Soccer, the other side of the Emotion Cup. That was a tie game for Girls Soccer. IF4, Skyline 4, 8 goals in total, tie game there. Congrats to both teams that are both in soccer, give them a point with a tie. But you got the tie, no one lost. So you continue surging in conference play. And then Skyline, about six days before that, this was last week, Skyline being a good Hillcrest team. Three to one, Abby Muir, Macy Marlow, scored all the goals. And Matt, Sean, you mentioned this. That whole 5A high country conference, soccer conference, is super tight. I think it's four teams that could all easily go to state. Yeah, you're going to have someone disappointed. You see the upsets all the time. And it's going to come down to that district tournament who's maybe hot or whatever in that district tournament. And it's going to make up. But you're going to have a feeling like a team should be there out of District 6 for sure. I think this year you've got-- I mean, both these games are pretty tight. You've got Shelley also there. You've got Blackfoot. You've got teams that can just on a flip of a switch beat each other any night of the week. Yeah, and we'll talk about something like-- because we're at the midpoint of the season here for both soccer and volleyball. September is-- yeah, we're two weeks away from the end of September. We'll get into that a little bit later. But that's really it for girls' soccer, boys' soccer, the big games of the week. Let's get into volleyball. Thunderby Classic does last Friday, Saturday, Sean. East Idaho School is participating. A lot of East Idaho School is participating, excuse me, along with Star Valley from Wyoming. Timberline from the Out West, Eagle, Hawaii, BK, and Centennial all came over for the big Thunderby Classic in volleyball. I like it when you have these big classics, because you end up having small, large schools mixed in. Games are best two out of three. But of course, Sean, who was the winner? Well, Madison, right? Madison, I think, is pretty much the overwhelming favorite, even coming into the season, pre-season, season, before season, whatever you want to call it, right? And they proved it right there. They win it over Hawaii. You have a Timberline and Eagle and BK and Centennial. You have these teams in the Boise area that are always competitive for Madison to come out with a win like that. I mean, you're on the right track and they're doing a good job or the Bobcats. Yeah, other notable wins was Snake River over Preston yesterday, 3-2. Snake River trying to-- they had a kind of a rough regular season if you will, but now that we get into conference, Preston, of course, is in that foray. They dropped down from volleyball from Pocatello in Century. Snake River made a good first statement in that conference, in their first conference game, winning 3-2. And then Madison, after that Thunderby Classic, they turned around and beat Thunder Ridge 3-0. Head coach Whitney Howard, where I talked about Madison, Sean, but just has got to be pleased. You can get all the pre-season hype. And you can even do well in the regular season. But when conference play starts, you've got to lock in and so far, her squad is locking in. Yeah, you know, and we talk about District 6 and the 5A. Well, District 6 at 6A is also going to be tough and very competitive because, of course, in volleyball, they also have Canyon Ridge in that conference for volleyball. And that's going to be interesting. Canyon Ridge wasn't far removed from being-- they're like the ranked number one ranked team last year and then had some discrepancies. But they were pretty solid. So you've just got from top to bottom good competitive teams, which I think what makes Madison probably strong, right? If your conference is strong, you're going to be strong. If you're a coach, you want to play the hardest competition you can and be prepared for that state tournament. And that's what Madison is doing the best job they can, doing that in East Idaho. Yeah, and I'm really curious if Madison continues to do what they're doing and win games. I'm curious who that second or third is in the high country conference for 6A. And then Pokebeat, Rigby, that was a big game. But it was yesterday as well. Pokebeat, Rigby 3-1, and girls volleyball. And Pokey continues to be dominant, even beating a good Rigby team. Finally, for volleyball, Sean Rockland. Beats Grace Lutheran. Grace Lutheran falls to a conference foe. 3-2, Rockland is now first in the Rocky Mountain Conference. I mean, well, you know, and then you've got Mackie lurking as well, too. And you've got just really-- I think the top end of that 19 conference is going to be the top four, top three teams. It's going to be super competitive. And you're going to see scores like this, which we have. We've seen a lot of five sets of these teams. And I think you're going to continue to see it. And right now, we're volleyball. You're basically halfway through the season. You know, if I look at a schedule, you're halfway through. So now it's really like for teams to start figuring out how if we need to make adjustments, we've got to change who's going in to serve, all that stuff. Starts to come up. And whatever team makes those adjustments the best in the second half will probably be the ones going in the state. Yeah, no doubt about it. And then you said-- and then you said, who's going to be the district six? Right. Like second or third. Probably Rigby is what I was going to say. So that's a good win for the Thunder. Yeah, it is. Quick comment from, I believe, is Devron Pendle. Hope I got that right, sir. Devron Pendle had a question. Where is Canyon Ridge? Sean, where is Canyon Ridge? And why on Earth are they in 6A High Country Conference? They're in Twin Falls. Now Canyon Ridge moved up in some sports to 6A, but some did not go to 6A. Like football, I believe, is still 5A. Because now with the IHSA, you can petition down in different things. And so that's why Canyon Ridge-- before they reclassified in Canyon Ridge, it would have been part of like a 19-power conference in 5A, which would have included like Twin Falls, Pocatello, Highland Rigby Madison. And then the Superintendents overruled that. And now we've got the six classifications, which we always had. Now we just actually call it 6 through 1. Yeah, so like Preston as well, moved down, I think, in softball and volleyball to 4A. So if you're not keeping the bingo card at home, could be hard to keep track of. Totally. Now, during the pre-season, as I was prepping for this prep cast and for just for football and general broadcasting, I made a spreadsheet of all the changes from 6A all the way down to 1A. It was super helpful for myself. So yeah, Canyon Ridge playing volleyball up at the 6A level with the High Country Conference. And then that was volleyball really fast, Sean. Football, let's just recap, Sean, for our picks. Every week, we each pick a game that we're interested in. And each of us has to guess who's going to win that game. Sean, of course, was 7, was 6 and 0. I was 3 and 3, I believe. No, I was 4 and 3. I know it doesn't matter. But Sean's winning, let's be honest. Sean's winning. And Sean now improves the 8-0 Madison Beach Skyline by 1. Sean was correct. I picked Skyline. I was wrong. So that brings me to, I think, it was 5 and 4 and 3. But we both got what were we at, Sean? We were-- Rigby, what did we do? Rigby. Rigby. Rigby, Pican. And we both saw the riding on the wall with Bishop Kelly. We both chose Rigby. And Rigby just demolished PK 42 to 7. So Sean's the 8-0. I'm at 5 and 3. And I'm just-- I'm just, you know-- I know. Sean, I'm not worthy. I will say, I wouldn't have been surprised if Skyline won. I'm pretty sure, last week I said, hey, this could go either way. I just went with Madison because I've been kind of on a Madison football kick right now. But you know-- They're 4 and 0. Skyline is-- if you're a Skyline, you're not-- I don't think you're in any bad shape. Just a couple of really good teams, different classifications. So Madison, their conference opponents coming up, I think is what's going to be really interesting. And for Skyline, just, I think they're going to keep on trucking along. And then Rigby, Rigby, BK, I think we both kind of thought the same thing. I don't know if I thought it would be 42 to 7. But again, it was a question of whether or not Bishop Kelly is at the top of the pyramid like we normally think they are. I don't think they're bad by any means. I just think Rigby had a very interesting, tough, hard schedule to start with. And now is settling in with some new components to that team. And Rigby was good. It was just about putting it all together. And I think maybe they put it all together for their one of two home games against Bishop Kelly. And that's the first loss for the Bishop Kelly coach, right? He's a new head coach. And they went undefeated one state championship. So the first loss for them. And look, Rigby, I feel like we said the same thing last year. Rigby started off slow, or we thought they were slow. They also had a very difficult schedule last year. So never count out Rigby, even when they're only playing two games at home, Sean. And then really fast at Skyline game, we know it's Wednesday. We're actually getting ready for our Friday games. But yeah, you said Skyline's going to be fine. I totally agree. They went for it. It was at home, homecoming. You go for the duplicate version, right? Blackfoot did the same thing, except for Blackfoot, it worked. Skyline did it. Madison comes with the victory. But I will say this, Sean. Madison's offensive defensive lines are no joke. Those guys created holes all night long. Well, the offensive line created the holes. And the defensive line gushed Skyline's offensive line. They got pressure when they wanted on defense. They got the constant push on offense. I'm not bullish on Madison. They are foreign. Oh, they've had a softer schedule than like Rigby. But man, I look for Madison to maybe make a surprise against Rigby or even Highland. Speaking of Highland, Highland Lake City, 13.7. Two field goals, Sean. One of those field goals of 45 yard are from Paxton Johnson, man. Yeah, I always-- you're new to this show. But I always like to bring up the kicks. And yeah, I saw the video of this kick. And I just was pretty amazed that outside, it's like, jury northern Idaho weather, the clouds and the palm trees. The palm, not the palm trees. I wish pine trees? The pine trees in the background. And he just kicks that thing from 45 yards. Like, it was nothing. But what a close game. And kind of a game that went under the radar, I think, because it was a Saturday they played this game. Highland versus Lake City, just a 13.7 win. I don't know what this means. And overall of things, I don't know if it means a whole lot. But being a close like that, I found it very interesting. And Highland replacing 20 plus seniors this year. Kind of to see what's going to end up there. And Highland will be featured this week on Iowsforce.com. So it'll be fun to see. Let's go into that. With the games coming up this week, let's pick one and guess the winner, Sean. Number of games coming up this week. Thunder Ridge, Highland, you already teased this out. The Gate City game night, you're going to be there at Highland. Thunder Ridge comes to town. We also have Hillcrest, that skyline. That's going to be the East Idaho game night. I'm going to be there. And then we have a couple of other games that I added here that I thought were interesting. The 3A New Congress's Firth versus the 3A South East Idaho Congress's Declo. And then Aberdeen, Ryari. Sean, do you want me to go first? Do you want me to go first? I'll go first this time. So I like this one too. I like the match up in the 3A. I like the Firth Declo. And I'm going to go Firth, though, because thinking in this game, I'm thinking Firth. Vosquez, I'm going to go Firth. I'm just looking at Declo. And I don't know if this is the Declo that has been in the past. So I'm feeling Firth. I love that pick. I really wanted to pick Firth as well. But I had to go with Declo because I was wrong last time when I picked against Declo. So I'm going to go for Declo on this one. Declo is tired for third of the media poll. The media is still high on Declo. I think you're right, though, Sean. I'm already calling that I'm wrong on this. I think Declo is not the Declo from years past. Firth is also-- well, that whole new conference, Sean. I don't think they're the new conference from past. I think Declo is much better than we realize. Ryari is much better than we realize. So I'm very interested to see this game. Excuse me, Firth is 2-in-1. Declo is 3-in-1. Firth is fifth in the media poll. I already mentioned Declo's rank. And I'm very excited for this game. So yeah, I like that. I'm going to go with Declo, though. You got Firth. I'll make a bold prediction, Joel. All right. I'm going to say 3A, someone in East Idaho wins. The state championship right now. Both is prediction of the night. Every team in every poll is in the top five, one way or not. I think there was even more if you look at Max, perhaps, like in the top 10 of how many East Idaho teams are. But 3A is very, very East Idaho heavy. So that's bold prediction. I said it here. September 18th, 3A comes through East Idaho this year. Type it in right now. Sean, bold prediction. That's awesome. OK, Sean, then I will go with the Aberdeen game. Aberdeen Ryari. And I'm going to go with Aberdeen on this one. Aberdeen is-- they've had a tougher schedule than Ryari. Both teams are free. You know, this is the undefeated game. Unfortunately, one team is going to come away with a loss, be their first loss of the season. Ryari is averaging 48 points per game. They are receiving a few votes, five votes, to be exact. But Aberdeen's had the harder schedule. They played it, played it better teams. I'm going to choose Ryari, Aberdeen in this one. Yeah, this is a sore subject on this game. I'm a big loop-- loop A Ortiz fan from Aberdeen. But I'm going to go Ryari. OK. I hope Matt Harris, the AD at Ryari's listing. I'm going to go Ryari. They've scored big points against some better opponents than they have in the past. I think it'll be very interesting. It's right now on paper. You got offense versus defense. And Riley, you put up the offensive numbers. And I don't know if Aberdeen could get in a shooting match with Ryari. That's what it becomes. And that's what I think is going to happen. And that's why I'll pick Ryari. And just because Matt Harris roasted me on Twitter. Matt Harris is the man. We're so, so appreciate Matt Harris. Matt Harris has been bullish on all his teams. And he was wrong. I talked to Matt Harris pre-season. And he said all of our teams are going to be better than last year. Like he said, hands down and some are going to make people are going to surprise some people. And maybe, yeah, one of those teams is that Ryari football team. Well, yeah. And if Aberdeen wins, I don't think anyone's overall surprised. But I mean, what a key win for Ryari, which in 3A football, I mean, Ryari's never been in the talks like some of these seems like a West side or a North Fremont or a Firth. This could be a win, that catapult Ryari into kind of the prime time lights. Yeah, no doubt. Looking forward to that one. Again, another Nuke versus SEIC game. All right. From football, let's move into a few more games. Sean, we tease this already. It's the midpoint for soccer and the midpoint for volleyball. It's amazing how fast this season goes. We start what? Second, third week of August. And we're just flying basically until the end of September. And then first week of October, if the season ends, we get into the postseason. So with that, for girls' soccer, midpoint, who's leading? We got Highland. And then at the 6A level. Then Skyline, Hillcrest, Bonneville, I have Pokey where I talked about those four teams. Skyline, Hillcrest, Bonneville, Pokey in the District 6. And then Pocatello in District 5. And then in 4A, Sugar American Falls, Marsh Valley. Any of those teams surprise you? Maybe they'll win through the season? You know, I think American Falls, probably, Girls Wise hasn't got enough recognition. Always a solid program. Maria Sanchez, who played at Idaho State University and then went on somewhere else and, you know, plays for making a lot of money in professional soccer is from American Falls, a leading goalscore in the state at one point. So American Falls, always a strong-- actually, both programs, Boys and Girls, always pretty strong and make it to state. So, yeah, American Falls doing a very good job right now. I would agree. I would also-- I'm going to pick Marsh Valley there. They've been surprising to me. Technically, right now in the standings, Sean, Marsh Valley is in second place. They're right just above Milan. American Falls is at three and 0 in Conference Marsh Valley, two and one. Big game coming up for both those teams. Next Monday, American Falls at Marsh Valley, one versus two. Should be really exciting for those two teams. Let's go to Boys and for Soccer. Again, midway through the season, we're finding out what's surprising here as we look at the standings. Boys, Thunder Ridge at six-day level. Thunder Ridge and Canyon Ridge are your kind of one and two at the five-day level, Blackfoot IF Hillcrest at District six and then, of course, century. Just dominant this season. And then at the four-day level, you got Sugar, Teton, American Falls, Marsh Valley. Any of those teams surprising to you? No, not really. I mean, you've got the-- you've got kind of the people. You know, that you kind of thought pre-season would be there. Again, I think it'll be very interesting. Canyon Ridge, Boys, Soccer, it was a strong program last year. They're now in this six-day high county conference. They're four and one. I was trying to see when they play Thunder Ridge, which is actually tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow, big game. That's a huge game. I think that's going to give us a lot of insight. I mean, it's not the overall factor, but you've got two really good teams in this conference right now, a Canyon Ridge team. That was a very competitive at a lowerification and now into this conference. So it'll be very interesting. And I would have a better picture of what's going on after that game. Yeah, good call. And then I'm-- yeah, I agree, Sean. None of these teams, super surprising to me. But we have some big matchups against some of the teams that we've already mentioned. Tomorrow, we've got Blackfoot at IF. That's a 1 versus 2 game in terms of conference standings. And then on Monday, IF at Hillcrest, that's a 2 versus 3. And then same for Monday, we have an American follows. We already mentioned them for girls. Also, boys, they're doing well. American follows at Marsh Valley. That's a 1 versus 2. So looking forward to all those games coming up. Oh, and Foneys-- sorry, I missed this one, Sean. Next Tuesday, Sugar at Teton. That's a 1 versus 2, and that's the first conference game from both those teams. So halfway through the season, and it's going to get really interesting. Every game is going to matter. Maybe you can drop one, but want to be careful when dropping two in conference play. Yeah, there's one game. And it's not till the very end of September that I'm very excited to see. It's Century Boys versus Wood River Boys. The number one and number two in Max Perhaps right now, they're going to play up in the Wood River area, Sun Valley area on September 28th. And that could be a potential state championship match right up in the regular season. So that's kind of a boys one I'm looking forward to coming up. Definitely. Let's go into volleyball and finish with this. Who's leading halfway through the volleyball season? We got at the 6A level Madison Rigby Thunder Ridge with Highland lurking. Again, that's that District 6. All those teams in District 6, man, they just can't stay away from each other. So you got three Madison Rigby Thunder Ridge with Highland lurking at the 5A. You got IF, Bonneville, Shelly, and then Pokey in District 5. And then 4A, Sugar, Snake River, Bear Lake with Preston lurking at the 3A, Ryrie, Milad. So to Westside, Declo is close by as well. At the 2A, Butte County are kind of in the league of their own. They're dominant in their conference. Of course, just Butte County and Grace. And then at the 1A, Grace, Lutheran, Rockland, and Mackey. Of all those schools, Sean, any surprise to you of top teams so far? The one that I find pretty interesting, and I'm excited to see once again the conference, is Bear Lake, Bear Lake moving up into this conference and Preston moving down to it. So you've got Southeast Conference, 4A, it's Snake River, Preston, Bear Lake, American Falls, Marsh Valley. Now Bear Lake girls haven't played a conference game yet, but they're 12 and 3 right now in this new conference. And so I'm kind of interesting to see what will happen there. You know, usually dominated by Snake River, kind of in that volleyball aspect. And also you have Marsh Valley, who's there. And they've yet to win one. But they've lost one conference game. But yeah, Bear Lake at 12 and 3 right now has kind of a good record. So it'll be interesting to see when those two play. Yeah, similarly, I like that. I think it's interesting that whole 3A East Idaho area, I believe it's 3A Southeast Idaho as well, with Ryrie, Mulad, sort of Westside, and Declal Close. It's almost all the teams. So it's like, okay, well, they can't all be the best team. But they really are, they're all neck and neck. So really excited to see what happens there. And seeing if Mulad, Westside can push kind of soda and Ryrie, again, that Ryrie team. AD Matt told us he was bullish on his Ryrie, on his Ryrie teams. And so far, Ryrie is doing work, kind of in that top spot for that 3A Southeast. I believe it's 3A. Let's just check that really fast. Check my notes. Yeah, that's that new conference that should be very interesting. So with that, Sean, games that are coming up that are interesting. Rigby at Madison tomorrow. That's a 2 versus 1. What if Rigby could steal a win? That would be phenomenal. Don't see that happening, but it should be interesting that game. And then Shelly at Blackfoot, that's the 3 versus 4, but both are really close. You mentioned Bear Lake. That's Saturday, Bear Lake playing at press. And it's the first conference game for Bear Lake. And it would be a big statement win for both those teams as they're in their same conference. And then tomorrow, we have Ryrie at first. It's the first conference game for Ryrie. Firth is one in the long conference. And this would kind of solidify is Ryrie the top team in that conference. You beat Firth, and you solidify yourself right now, at least, as the top team in the conference. On Wednesday, this will be a week from today. Or is that-- excuse me, no, that's today. Sota is playing at Westside. Those are two top conference teams. And then tomorrow, you got Sota at Declo. Again, both top teams in their conference. This isn't a conference game, Sean, but very interesting. You mentioned the soccer with Sentry at Wood River. On Monday, we have Pocatello-- this is the girls' volleyball-- Pocatello playing at Wood River. Phenomenal matchup, potentially the best teams in 5A. Yeah, you've got a pretty good matchup. They both have very strong records, right? You've got Wood River coming in with 12 wins. I think Pocatello has the 12 wins as well. So it'll be interesting to see. It's kind of diluted, though, I think sometimes, because volleyball teams go and play the just best out of three. So you might win two really closely, and then it counts as a win. But when you have to play a full five sets, it'll be a very good test for the Thunder, which I think is definitely on pace to probably bring back some more hardware this year from the state tournament. Yeah. So great matchups coming up this week and next week before our next prep cast. We'll, of course, break it all down for you on the next prep cast. Sean, we're going to be at this week and remind us one more time. I'll be at Highland against Thunder Ridge. Now, I think this is a very interesting matchup. You have Highland, right? They haven't lost the game. They've had some close calls. They've got new quarterback. They've replaced lost seniors, but Highland's doing what they do. They play defense very well. They come up with offense. We've got a Thunder Ridge team that only won one game last year, and they've won two games now already this year. And they're very well coached. They've got a former Highland guy at Thunder Ridge coaching, Volger. And you've got a lot of familiarity there in the conference. And then you're not too removed from last year when they played towards the end of the season, Highland and Thunder Ridge. It's always hard to say Thunder Ridge because then I think Pocatella Thunder, you know? But two and one is Thunder Ridge. And the game last year against Highland, it was 21, 29. They lost the Highland who goes on to win the state championship. Right? So I'm excited to see if Thunder can take that next step. And I mean, it's got to be the hardest conference in football, really, with Rigby, Highland, Madison, Thunder Ridge. When you look at your conference and how small it is, so your window of opportunity to get to state brackets is so small, I think it's the hardest conference. It really top in, top out. But maybe Thunder Ridge can come away with a big win. But Highland does this. They do what they do very well, and that's find a way to win games. Yeah, they have so far all season, especially with those low scoring games. So good looking forward to that one. That's going to be the Gate City game night on auto sports.com. So catch Sean and his partner running that game. I'll be at Hillcrest at Skyline at Raphson State, and that's going to be the east side of Hill game night on auto sports.com. And that one, Sean, I think D will be the difference. Offences are going to score, but it's going to be which defense can stop these high powered offenses. Hillcrest coming in at one of the own conference, two and one overall. Skyline, same, a similar record. One of the own conference, but one and two. So Skyline, you lose this game. You're suddenly one in one in conference and one in three overall, and it gets really interesting. But at the end, I think Skyline had a hard time against Madison's giant offensive line. Defense will be the key in this one for both teams looking for that one. That's when I will be at-- and you can catch other games on auto sports.com. There will be a few more. And including a salmon or a phenom playing, I believe at salmon, it will be the first time on auto sports.com has broadcasted a game at Salmon High School, or a phenom salmon. Also, the greatest mascot competition you've ever had. The maniacs versus the savages. Yeah, that's going to be wild. I'm sure it's going to be beautiful scenery out there and the salmon area. No doubt. That would be great. And I was going to say one other comment about that Skyline, Hillcrest game, just because I was talking to the Thunderidge coaches. And they said-- and you've got to see Hillcrest live, right? So you've seen them. No, just spotted. Oh, just Skyline, not. A lot of people say Hillcrest could compete very-- they could say that they could compete at the 6A level. That's how good they are this year. That's kind of the word of the street I'm getting. So that's a very exciting match up between those two teams. Two teams that battled last year in conference, battled and Hillcrest made it to the state championship. Skyline didn't. But Skyline's only been there 20 other times. So set in the tone early in the season for both those teams, whether it's just for bragging rights or just the kind of say who's the top dog in 5A football. Yeah, no doubt. Well, enjoy all the competition this weekend, everybody. That's going to do it for us here on the east.oprepcast. out of hostsports.com for Sean Kane. I'm Joel Richardson saying, be excellent to each other. And we'll see you next time on the east.oprepcast on out of hostsports.com. [BLANK_AUDIO]
