Ready to roll into fall sports

Fall is here and it even feels like it even though it is August in Iowa.

Last Friday, we had two area football teams open the season on a perfect night — cooler temperatures and dry weather. Actually, there was a bit of breeze at Belle Plaine where I was covering Lynnville-Sully and it got a bit chilly in the second half.

Let’s bottle that Friday night for the next two-plus months!

Fall sports season kicked off this week for the five area Jasper County high schools.

We had Newton and Prairie City-Monroe volleyball on Tuesday in the NHS Cardinal Early Bird Invitational. Baxter and Lynnville-Sully volleyball got underway also on Tuesday.

Baxter’s Bolts got out ahead of all the other area cross country teams with a meet at Woodward-Granger on Monday. Thursday will see Newton, PCM and Colfax-Mingo cross country teams in their first competition of the fall along with Baxter. Lynnville-Sully doesn’t get into competition until next Tuesday.

The NCMP Aquagirls’ swimming team hits the competitive waters on Thursday at Grinnell. The Aquagirls have swimmers from Newton, Colfax-Mingo, Pella and PCM on the 2019 squad.

That brings us to Friday night football. All five Jasper County high school teams will be in action. And we’re off and running for 2019 fall sports season.

Newton High’s Cardinals challenge the defending Iowa Class 2A champions — the PCM Mustangs. Last year, the two squared off in the season opener at Newton. It was a close game early then the seasoned and senior-laden Mustangs pulled away for a 50-10 victory, which began their 12-0 run to the school’s first state football championship.

Personnel changes come for both the Mustangs and Cardinals as they head into only the second meeting between the two Jasper County teams. The game will be played at Central College’s football field in Pella as a home game for PCM. PCM’s new football turf field is not ready for play.

I’ll be covering the Newton and PCM game on Friday in Pella.

Lynnville-Sully (0-1) hosts Pleasantville and Baxter (1-0) has its second straight home game with Coon Rapids-Bayard coming to town. Colfax-Mingo opens the 2019 season at BCLUW.

Oh, the first week of action continues on Saturday with volleyball action. Lynnville-Sully, Baxter and Colfax-Mingo step on the court for the first time in 2019.

The L-S Hawks are in a tournament at Grinnell while Baxter plays in the Colfax-Mingo tournament. PCM is in a tournament hosted by West Marshall.

Whew! And we’re rolling.

Goals have been set by every individual athlete, coach and team as always to start a new season. Making the goal of being great, special or perfect as individuals or as a team is special in itself. Done the correct way, striving to be perfect is what we all want in life.

But life is not perfect. My mother always told us to aim for the moon and if we fail to reach the moon, we’d be in the stars. It comes down to doing things right and doing the right things.

Contact Jocelyn Sheets at jsheets@newtondailynews.com