Broncos prep for Davenport

The Lind-Ritzville/Sprague Broncos kicked off the season with the annual Jamboree in Ritzville Aug. 26. The Jamboree allowed the Broncos to get a look into areas of improvement, as well as rotate athletes into new positions.

The Jamboree serves as a scrimmage of sorts against other teams, Head Coach Greg Whitmore said, and the coaches do not judge the performance as much as they would a true game situation.

Whitmore said the coaching staff focuses on finding the positives and the negatives in the performance, in order to see areas in need of development.

Offensively, he thought the team played well. He said this year the team is physically strong, and has good size and good speed throughout the athletes.

He said the offense team is where they need to be, but the team has to continue to practice at game speed and work on conditioning.

Overall, Whitmore said the team is in need of more conditioning to make them game ready.

Defensively, Whitmore said there is some work to do and he is focusing the improvements to tackling. This year the Broncos have a lot of new members at the line, and Whitmore said he is emphasizing tackling and flying to the ball.

The Broncos are set to meet up in the season opener game against Davenport on Friday, Sept. 4, in Ritzville. The team has undergone a variety of line-up changes following the graduation of 14 seniors last year.

Whitmore is glad the first league game is at home and the Broncos are focused on getting good practices in to prepare for the game. Whitmore said the Broncos are familiar with many of the plays and rotations Davenport uses, but he knows the Gorillas will be tough competition.

Friday game time is set for kickoff at 7 p.m.