The Rush City Tigers got their season underway a week earlier than the rest of the teams in our area with a zero week game. Rush City will get a week off on October 4th this season because of the early start. The Tigers start the season with three straight roads which will prove to be a tough stretch for Rush City. But it already started out on a good note with a 22-14 win over Mesabi East on Friday night. The Giants were a tough team last year finishing the year 7-3 and beating teams like Hinckley-Finlayson and Deer River. So Tiger fans are hoping this win is a sign of good things to come this season.
2019 Tiger Season Preview with Joe Lattimore:
What are you most excited for this year?
We are really excited about our numbers that we have out this year. Our current roster is over 40 players. This is the biggest roster we have had in the last four years. We also feel that we have a roster where we can get contributions from many different players.
What will be your biggest challenge?
The biggest challenge that we are facing this year is that we had to pick up a zero week game. Chisholm was not able to play us again this year, leading us to find an eighth game. We were able to schedule a game with Mesabi East, who was also supposed to play Chisholm this year, on August 23rd. This has led to the challenge of playing three road games to start the season. These road games are all up on the Iron Range, Mesabi East, Virginia, and North Woods
How is the roster shaping up? Do you have a lot of new players? Are you returning a lot of players? Younger? Older? Etc.
We feel we have a roster that is balanced from our senior class to our freshmen class. We have 11 seniors on this roster. A lot of our seniors were able to get some good game experience last year. We also feel that we have some underclassmen that will step up and fill some roles on both offense and defense.
Who are a couple athletes that will stand out?
We are fortunate enough to return All Sub District player Daniel Mielke. Daniel has been a started for us since his Freshman year. He will be a leader on both of our offensive and defensive lines this year. We return our 2nd and third leading rushers from last year in Hunter Sykes and Anthony Hermanson. We will rely on both of them this year as running backs and defensive leaders. Zeth Hahn has had a great camp so far. Zeth, a junior, played last year and will be expanding his role in all three phases this year.
What are your goals for the season?
Our goal that we have every year is to get better everyday in everything we do. We want to be better football players, students, and sons. We feel that if we can get better everyday, we will be a very tough team come October. We also put up as a goal to host a playoff game. It has been a couple of years since we have, and we would like to bring a playoff game back to Rush City.
Favorite upcoming games, matches, or meets?
We love the games we play in our sub district. Many of the teams that we play are also conference opponents, East Central, Braham, and Hinckley-Finlayson. We will be playing H-F again this year for “The Big Cat Cup”
Photo Credit: RC Tigers on Twitter
