By MACKENZEE SIMMS | Staff Writer

HELENA – Brimming with team spirit, the community gathered at Helena High School to celebrate the start of fall sports at this year’s Husky Day on Thursday, Aug. 15. With football scrimmages and dance team performances of all age groups, Husky Day aimed to ignite excitement for all that attended.

As soon as the gates opened for the evening, members of the community poured into the Helena High School football stadium, dressed in Husky blue. The evening began with seventh and eighth grade football scrimmages and a performance by the middle school cheer, dance and majorette teams.

Following the middle school showings, members of different fall sports gathered on the field for recognition before the High School Jamboree against Leeds High School.

According to head coach Richie Busby, the preseason match against Leeds is a good test to see how the Husky team will gel on the field due to the similarities in their play styles.

“(Leeds is) a good program,” Busby said. “We’ve done this now four years with them. They play the same kind of football we play. They’re physical. They like to run the football.”

In the first half of the scrimmage, the Leeds Greenwave dominated the field. But after a halftime performance from the varsity and junior varsity cheer squads, the Huskies came back to secure the victory.

“We lost a lot of good football players off of last year’s team,” Busby said. “We’ve got some good ones coming back—they just haven’t played a whole lot. They have got to learn that they have got to play team football. We did that in the second half defensively, and we played better.”

According to Busby, the jamboree with Leeds gave the team the opportunity get film for the team to review in the days leading up to their season opener against the Yellowjackets at McAdory High School on Friday, Aug. 30.

But beyond learning lessons from scrimmages, Husky Day also gives student athletes of all ages the opportunity to take the field together and celebrate the start of the fall sports season.

Busby shared that he hopes that the younger players could look at the older teams and see the value of hard work and dedication.

“I hope the (younger kids) see that we play hard,” Busby said. “Since I’ve been here—this is my seventh season—we’ve won games that lots of times we were outmanned in some areas, but our kids played hard.”

Those interested in more information about all of the fall sports at Helena High School can visit Helenahssports.com.