Rickie Tharpe tackles Kendrick Sampson during the pep rally's scrimmage game.

With the rain pouring down outside and football practice moved indoors to the BCHS auditorium, coaches on Monday fired up the Wildcats in preparation for Friday’s match-up with West Nassau in the Kickoff Classic.

They talked about team work, playing their positions and the good things that would happen if the Cats played like they practiced.

It was clear that though the long, hot summer is far from over, the first sign of fall is in the air — football.

You didn’t need any surer sign that Baker County is ready for a little gridiron heroics than the turnout at the pre-season pep rally at Memorial Stadium on Friday night.

The place was packed with cheering, rowdy and enthusiastic Wildcat fans. They came early and stayed late. They got fired up by the early scrimmage that Coach Ryan Sulkowski staged for their benefit.

Kendrick Singleton

For the last week the Baker High Wildcat football team has basically been living, eating and working together as it moves down the home stretch to the Kickoff Classic on August 27 at West Nassau.

The Cats have been attending summer football camp and Coach Ryan Sulkowski and his staff have been doing 2- and 3-a-day workouts to get them into shape.

“We’ve been building a team,” said Sulkowski. “That’s what you do in camp, it’s all about finding team chemistry.”

Some of what they’ve been experiencing has been positive and some has been challenging. But through it all the picture is becoming clearer for Sulkowski.

He has been working to eliminate the two platoon system where the very best players are on both offense and defense. That can wear on a player over the course of a long season.

So far, Sulkowski has eliminated all but five players from double platooning.

Former Wildcat standout pitcher Jarrell Rodgers signed a letter of intent on June 30 to play baseball for the division I University of Tennessee at Martin in the Ohio Valley Conference on June 30.

While at BCHS, Rodgers helped lead the Cats to the playoffs two years in a row, including a district title in 2006 under former Coach John Staples.

Rodgers posted 28 career wins as a Wildcat and was selected as one of the top 100 players in the state in 2008, the year he graduated.

Rodgers recently finished at St. Johns River Community College under Coach Ross Jones, leading the team in innings pitched with 87 and earning second team all-conference honors last season.

“He was an integral part of the staff at St. Johns and he will be a quality guy on the mound for us,” said Tennessee-Martin head coach Bubba Cates. “We are expecting Jarrell to come here and make an immediate impact. He should come in and start for us.”

Special to the Press

Editor’s note: The Baker County Little League’s 9 and 10-year-old all-star team competed for the state championship July 23-24. Head coach David Crummey provided the following summary.

Our first game was against Tri-County, which is an all-star team out of the Tallahassee area. We played them on a Friday night to open the state tournament.

We took an early lead in the first inning as we discussed before the game what we needed to do. We knew it would be crucial for us to start fast at the plate and try to control the game, but we found ourselves behind and started pressing.

We lost the first game by a slim margin of 5-3. We were in a position to tie or go ahead late in the game, but their pitchers kept us off balance till the end.

Tri-County finished the state tournament as runner-up.