The humidity is starting to go down and some of the leaves are starting to change. These are early signs that the fall sports season is creeping toward, and for some sports in the heat of, “crunch time.”
Football
The Zachary High football team finished its 4-5A pre-district schedule with a 3-1 record that earned a seventh overall ranking statewide in 5A.
The Broncos have road games against Liberty at Olympia on Oct. 18 and Central on Nov. 1 with a home game against Woodlawn Oct. 25 sandwiched in between. The team closes with a home game against the Catholic Bears.
In the local Baton Rouge area rankings, punter Rafael Costa leads with a 44 yard average on seven punts. Caleb Gonzales has the third most passing yards with 797 yards on 57-97-1 with six touchdowns.
Volleyball
The ZHS volleyball team has a power ranking of 33, which would put it on the outside looking in for the playoffs. Don’t count them out just yet. At the time of writing this young team is getting better every game and has an 8-7 record… and we haven’t even started district play.
The ZHS volleyballers will have their district home opener on Oct. 16 against Baton Rouge High. After consecutive road games against Dutchtown (nondistrict on Oct. 17) and St. Josephs (Oct. 21), they pick up two more home games against Central (Oct. 23) and Brusly (Oct. 25) before closing out the regular season with three road games.
Swimming
The ZHS swimming team finished the regular season Oct. 12, and the CCSL on Nov. 1 at Crawfish Aquatics lingers not too far on the horizon. At the CCSL cluster meet on Sept. 23, both the Zachary boys and girls teams finished second overall. In addition to 22 individual best times, three new state qualifying swim times were recorded by Joseph Johnson and Jamarus Samuel.
First-place finishers were Maddy Snyder (500 free), Evelyn Deroche (100 fly), girls 400 free relay team (Snyder, Ava Ordonio, Chloe Wedblad and Deroche) and the boys 400 free relay team (Matthew Hughes, Warren Griffin, Samuel and Johnson).
Time is short to qualify for the State Championship at Spar Aquatics in Sulphur Nov. 22-23.
Cross-country
The ZHS cross-country team is in preparation for hosting the Bronco XC Stampede Oct. 19 at the Port Hudson State Historic Site.
After the high schoolers run in the morning, area middle schoolers will compete in the Northwestern Middle School Battlefield XC Run.
On Sept. 30, both the boys and girls teams showed their stuff sweeping the team titles at the Nicholls State University Cross Country Invitational 5K in Thibodaux. Nala Mitchel led the girls with a fourth place finish. Top 10 finishers for the boys were Connor Conachen, fourth; Blair Smith, 10th and overall winner sophomore Max Gennaro.
East Baton Rouge Championships and the Division 1 Regional meet will be Nov. 2 and Nov. 8 at Highland Road Park. The state meet will be at Northwestern in Natchitoches on Nov. 18.