By Marcus Elliott

Sports Editor

All the preseason pleasantries are over and tomorrow night the Friday night lights will shine bright all over Texas.

The Cardinals are starting their season on the road against the Nevada-Community Braves, a 3A team. Melissa's second game of the season will also be on the road, against Van Alstyne, another 3A team that went 10-0 in the regular season last year.

Their first home game will be on Sept. 10 against Anna. It will also be Melissa's homecoming.

Four of Melissa's first five games are against 3A teams, with the fifth game coming against a tough Gunter team. Cardinal coach Seth Stinton says that these pre-district games will prepare his team in many ways.

Each of the teams that we have on our schedule in preseason prepare us in different ways. We don't know much about the teams in our district and anytime you play a preseason schedule as tough as ours it will hopefully pay off when district comes around. Your team is better prepared for the types of teams that you might face in district.

"Each of the teams that we have on our schedule in preseason prepare us in different ways," Stinton said. "We don't know much about the teams in our district and anytime you play a preseason schedule as tough as ours it will hopefully pay off when district comes around. Your team is better prepared for the types of teams that you might face in district."

As they kick off their pre-district schedule, Stinton says that his team is going to work on doing the small things correctly, get lined up right, get in better stances, run to the ball on defense better and execute on offense better.

Melissa took on Bonham last Thursday in their last live action before their season opener. The Cardinal coaching staff said after the scrimmage that as a team Melissa "played well defensively as a unit and didn't give up any big plays."

In comparison to their opening scrimmage against Callisburg, Stinton added that Melissa "tackled better and ran the ball better offensively."