IHSAA allows teams to hold scrimmages

Clear Lake hosts Newman; G-H/V hosts Lake Mills

The Iowa High School Athletic Association approved for the first time this year teams to hold a scrimmage with another school after 10 days of practice and prior to their first game. Many coaches, especially those in some of Iowa’s smaller schools, have been pushing for these scrimmage games for years.  The scrimmage’s purpose is to take the place of an intersquad game since some of those smaller schools don’t have enough players to have an intersquad scrimmage. 

The Clear Lake vs. Newman Catholic scrimmage played on Friday, Aug. 23 and the Garner-Hayfield/Ventura vs. Lake Mills games were two area scrimmages.

“The state allowing scrimmages between schools is a very nice change.,” said G-H/V Coach Scott VanDusseldorp.  “It allows athletes the opportunity to participate against other teams and work out those early season kinks.”

The Clear Lake vs. Newman  scrimmage at Clear Lake, matched a pair of perennial playoff qualifers.    Newman coach Mike Dirksen said a number of people  told him that they thought he was crazy in scheduling the scrimmage, but he says it was a quality scrimmage for both schools.

Clear Lake Coach Fred Wieck and Dirksen were excited to meet on the field and get some work done.

Dirksen says he’s happy to see the IHSAA reverse the scrimmage policy to allow competition between two schools. 

“I’m an advocate of the scrimmages. If you get the right teams and coaching staff and they work together to get some good out of all the kids...it’s a great idea. The obvious fear is getting some kids bumped up a little bit.”  

G-H/V Coach Scott VanDusseldorp also saw many advantages to the scrimmage his team hosted against Lake Mills.

“We saw a lot of good things at the scrimmage and a lot of things we need to work on.  We will be working hard this week to correct those mistakes against West Hancock.”