The Prescott Cardinal football team will open their home season against the Ellsworth Panthers this Friday. After playing three ranked teams on the road to open the season, Head Coach Jordan Hansen and his charges are excited to return to the friendly confines of Laney Field. Head Coach Rob Heller and the Panthers head into Friday’s game winless on the season. Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. 

Prescott Head Coach Geoffrey Snyder and the Cardinal volleyball team will host Elmwood/Plum City this Thursday. First serve is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Prescott High School. 

If there was one name dominating the Prescott cross country conversation at last Thursday’s Somerset Invitational, it was Kyra Dix. The Cardinal senior raced to the girls individual championship, covering the course in an impressive 18:53. Emma Schmitz also earned a medal for the Prescott girls, placing 10th in 24:30 as the Cardinals finished third as a team. On the boys side, sophomore Dawson Langer paced Prescott with a fourth-place finish in 19:18, helping the Cardinals to a fourth-place team showing. According to Head Coach Tim Phillips, Prescott runners recorded 15 season-best times and seven lifetime bests at Somerset. Freshman Mari Most also made her seasonal varsity debut, earning a varsity placing and giving the Cardinals another young runner to watch as the season progresses.

Football fans in the stands last Friday in Baldwin were treated to the impressive exploits of Prescott junior Ashton Marshall. The speedy return man had over 200 return yards including two electrifying kickoff returns. In the first quarter the speedy Marshall raced 89 yards down the sideline giving his team first and goal inside the Baldwin 10-yard line. In the third quarter Marshall’s return was 10 yards better as he bolted 99 yards for a touchdown. Speaking of speedsters, it was also impressive to watch the Baldwin-Woodville tandem of junior A.J. Dachel and talented sophomore Luke Janke. Incidentally, Janke’s brother Jack is a senior wide receiver at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and an Ellsworth graduate. 

Thanks to a local high school sports aficionado I became aware of quite a sports story involving high school girls volleyball. Sometimes the scoreboard tells you who won the match, but many times it tells you very little about what actually happened. Last week at Frederic High School, something happened that had nothing to do with the final score and everything to do with what high school athletics are supposed to be about. Frederic was hosting Siren. The visitors arrived with fewer than 10 players and a very small contingent of fans. Given the well documented difficult financial circumstances facing the Siren School District, it would have been easy to simply accept the situation and move on. But Frederic Head Volleyball Coach Rob Lillehaug noticed. Early in the match, Coach Lillehaug looked across the gym and decided the small cadre of Siren fans needed a little help. So he asked members of the Frederic student cheering section to root for the Dragons. They did. And they didn’t just clap politely, they cheered and chanted enthusiastically. They encouraged the players and screamed their approval on each winning shot. The Frederic students supported the opposing team with the same enthusiasm they would have shown their own Vikings. No, they didn't change their school colors, but for a while, they might as well have been wearing green and white. What Coach Lillehaug did was more than a nice gesture. It was a lesson. In an era when high school sports can sometimes become consumed by winning, losing, rankings, rivalries and championships, a head coach reminded his athletes there are lessons in athletics that don't appear in the standings. Sometimes, the right thing to do is simply to notice someone who needs a little support and then do something about it. In turn, the Frederic students followed Coach Lillehaug’s lead. Suddenly a volleyball match became something much larger than a high school competition. That is what makes high school sports special. The final score will eventually disappear into a box score. But the memory of those Frederic students cheering on their northern neighbors with the urging of a head coach? That one deserves to stick around. That's a victory nobody needs a scoreboard to record. Hats off to Coach Lillehaug and those Frederic students. 

There are a lot of career paths for a 2017 Prescott High School graduate. Nick Simon chose one that involves considerably more time in the woods than most. Simon was back home over the weekend visiting family and made an appearance at Friday night's football game in Baldwin. It was a chance for the former Prescott graduate to catch up with some familiar faces and take in a little Friday night football. These days, however, Simon's workplace is considerably more adventurous. Based out of Iowa, Simon works as a content producer for Ozonics Hunting and travels across the country filming elite elk and whitetail hunts. Kentucky. Texas. Iowa. Montana. Those are just a few of the places his job has taken him. While many people spend their workdays behind a desk, Simon spends his time documenting big-game hunts and producing high-quality short films that showcase some of the country's best hunting adventures. But despite a career that has taken him far beyond western Wisconsin, Simon hasn't forgotten where he came from and why many were glad to see the affable Prescott alumnus along the Baldwin football sideline Friday night. For a few hours, the cameras, elk and whitetails could wait. It is wonderful watching a young person from the area take an interest, develop a talent and eventually turn it into a career that takes them around the country. It's been quite a journey for the 2017 Prescott graduate and I guess there will be a few good hunting stories to share on the next trip home.

Headshaker of the Week: What has happened to college sports? I know change is inevitable. I know times change. I know sports evolve. But every once in a while, something happens that makes you wonder if we've crossed a line that should never have been crossed. This is one of those times. A federal judge recently blocked the NCAA and SEC from enforcing restrictions against former professional football players returning to college football if they still have eligibility remaining. Former NFL players returning to college? You have got to be kidding me. LSU coach Lane Kiffin welcomed two former NFL players, Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris, into the LSU program. Both had previously played for Kiffin at Ole Miss before moving on to the NFL. Think about how that would have sounded 10 or 20 years ago. Laughable. But not today. Apparently, making it to the NFL no longer means you're finished with college football. Why not? We've already turned the transfer portal into free agency, NIL into a financial marketplace and college coaches into professional executives. So I guess former NFL players returning to college was the next logical step. Sure. Why not? I guess I have to give Kiffin some credit; he ultimately chose not to play Wright and Harris in the opener, avoiding an immediate confrontation with the SEC. So congratulations, Lane. You opened the can of worms, then wisely decided not to eat them. Boy, how things have changed and sorry, folks, these changes haven't improved college athletics. They've simply made it harder and harder to recognize what college sports used to be. This isn't about blaming the players; it's about the rules themselves. Former NFL players playing college football is not progress to me. For me it’s another chapter in the continued slow demise of college athletics. Former NFL players in college football? Now that's a headshaker.