MISQUAH — Pike football completed its first week of two-a-days Friday with twenty-nine players still on the roster — the same number that started, which coaches will tell you is the statistic that matters in the first week and which does not always hold.

Helmets Monday, pads Wednesday, per the acclimatization rules. Mornings ran conditioning and installation; evenings ran contact once the pads were on. The heat cooperated better than it might have, and the water cart, which has been the subject of complaint since 2019, held up. Two players missed a session with cramps and returned. Nobody was hurt.

The field, which this newspaper described a week ago as the best it has looked in three summers, has begun the annual process of being taken apart by cleats between the hashes. Head coach Ryan Mattox regards this without sentiment. “Grass grows,” he said. “We don’t.”

The scrimmage is Friday at home in the evening, free admission, and the fair is the same night, and Mattox has already conceded the crowd. “We’ll have the parents and whoever loses an argument at the fairgrounds,” he said. The season opens the following Friday on the road. Volleyball opened the same week and has twenty-two out across two levels; cross country begins wherever the coach parks, which this year is the pavilion lot.

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