WAKE UP! ON ETBLITZ | A busy day here on ETB; schedule release later; Rangers-Mariners tonight in game one of HUGE series
EDITOR’S NOTE: Wake Up! is presented daily by Cozy Coffee Station, with a couple of locations in East Texas in Gilmer and Kilgore, and also one in Allen. If you haven’t been to any of them, we’d encourage you to go! Their products are amazing and so are Oscar and Ashley and their staff. Their hours are good for everyone, if you’re a on-the-way-to-school-or-work person or a I-need-a-lift-in-the-afternoon person, they’re there. In Kilgore, they’re at 110 Midtown Plaza, and in Gilmer, they’re at 755 Highway 271 North, in Credit Union Of Texas in both locations. And if you’d like to see their menu before you go (which isn’t just drinks, by the way), here you go: Cozy Coffee Station.
They’re just about here
Football practice is on the horizon, volleyball, too, and that means things are about to pop (thank goodness!).
This year, in case you missed it (and that’s possible; I mean, it’s summer, and people are coming and going), we’ve added three schools’ athletics to our coverage area: Beckville, Carthage and Pine Tree. They join Arp, Gilmer, Gladewater, Henderson, Kilgore, Leverett’s Chapel, Overton, Sabine, Tatum, Troup, West Rusk and White Oak to give us 15 high schools in the ETBlitz.com coverage area, along with Kilgore College and the colleges that make up the Southwest Junior College Football Conference, and the Region XIV Conference in other sports.
Volleyball schedule release today
We’ll have volleyball schedule release today and tomorrow for all 15 high schools, and that’ll mean they’ll be accessible, all in one place, for the entire run of both seasons. So if you want to compare and contrast who Gilmer has in their first district football game with where the Lady Buckeyes are playing volleyball, you can do that, and you can do it all fall. If you want to see when Pine Tree volleyball is on the road so you can plan your younger daughter’s piano lessons around it, there you go. And strictly for sports reasons, to compare schedules, who has the more difficult road-trip schedule, be our guest.
We do know these schedules are available in other places, and on the schools’ websites and social media. But here’s a one-stop shop for everybody. You know — because we love y’all.
To be clear: volleyball schedules hit today, and football first thing tomorrow.
Next week
ETBlitz.com will be just about everywhere starting next week, at football and volleyball practices throughout the month of August.
We’re fired up about Sunday night, early Monday morning, when we’ll be out at Tatum. The Eagles have something wild and crazy going on: MIDNIGHT MADNESS. The Tatum High School Eagles are inviting fans and the community to come out and join them for practice to begin shortly after midnight Monday morning Aug. 4 (and eat tacos!) at the school’s indoor practice facility. We’ll be there to give you a glimpse of what’s happening.
Of course, next week you’ll begin to see previews for all the area high school football teams and volleyball teams, probably starting next Tuesday, Aug. 5, as well as all of the teams in the junior college conference, the SWJCFC.
The preseason polls
At last check (like moments before we published this), there’s still no preseason volleyball state poll available from the Texas Girls Coaches Association. But the preseason football poll has been out (from Dave Campbell’s Texas Football) since July 5, available here on this site, and we’re making it available again later today. That’s all six classifications throughout the University Interscholastic League, and there won’t be another new poll until after the first weekend of the season (Aug. 28-31).
Ranger Report
Texas won their last game of the series on the road at the Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday, getting out with a 6-3 win. Nathan Eovaldi (9-3 himself this year) went seven innings on the mound, allowing six hits, but only one earned run. He struck out four and walked two.
Second baseman Marcus Semien had three hits on the night (including a double) and an RBI, and Adolis Garcia had a two-run home run in the eighth inning.
The Rangers are now 57-52 on the season, and heading to Seattle tonight to start a series with the Mariners, with whom they are now tied in the American League West Division standings. Houston is 62-47 and leads the division; Seattle and Texas are second, both five games back, with the exact same record. So this is a huge series.
Tonight’s game is an 8:40 p.m. start our time. Friday’s first pitch is set for 9:10 p.m., and then Saturday, they move to an afternoon start at 3:10.
Also, Major League Baseball’s trade deadline is TODAY at 5 p.m. our time. If the Rangers make any moves, we’ll be back and let you know.
