By Brenda Erdahl
After a long summer break, Irish athletes are gearing up for a competitive fall season.
Practice started in mid-August for volleyball, football and cross country with contests for football and cross country beginning this week.
An experienced Irish football team will host the Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City Falcons at Irish Stadium on Thursday, Aug. 31 and the cross country team races on Friday morning, Sept. 1 at its home course at Ney Park. The volleyball team opened the week before, on Friday, Aug. 25 at a tournament in Albany. On Tuesday, August 29 they went to Litchfield for their second outing of the season.
Football practice began for the Irish on Monday, Aug. 14 outside Irish Country Stadium with 35 athletes out for the sport. They scrimmaged Spectrum on Aug. 26 as a warmup to Thursday night’s home game against ACGC.