Staff writer
Marion athletics were on display Thursday and Friday — first at Red and Blue Night, introducing the schools’ fall sports teams, then in somewhat competitive matches for the varsity football and volleyball teams at Remington.
Red and Blue Night started at the Sports and Aquatic Center, where middle and high school volleyball teams practiced and scrimmaged in front of an audience.
Toward the end, varsity volleyball asked their parents to play against them for fun.
The second part of the event was at the football stadium, where the football, crosscountry, girls golf, and cheer teams were introduced.
Middle school football went on to play a scrimmage and varsity football conducted a normal practice, working on special teams.
With the sun almost set, the cross-country team was host for a “moonlight mile” run around the track that garnered the attention of several kids, parents, and friends.
Anyone who completed the mile received a free float.
The next day at Remington, the varsity volleyball played a pair of 35-minute matches against Remington and Eureka with a running clock, no score being kept, and only two time-outs allowed per team.
The matches helped the team gear up for its first opponents of the season, White City and Hutchinson, which they played Monday and Tuesday.
The girls’ first home game of the season will be Thursday against Bennington.
Starting at the 40 yard line, Marion varsity football also played Remington and Eureka in scrimmages that allowed up to 36 offensive plays and 36 defensive plays with fumbles and interceptions counting as dead balls.
“The thing I was most pleased with from the jamboree was our guys playing hard and flying around to the ball on defense,” coach Shaun Craft said. “It was good to go out and face some competition other than ourselves before facing Inman.”
Marion will opens the season at home Friday against a tough Inman team.
“Some things we’ll work on this week are just cleaning up some assignments errors on offense and defense,” Craft said.