Friday night lights: Routt to play home football games at IC

By Gary Scott on July 29, 2016 at 9:31am

With football season looming, one local high school team will be playing their home games at a new location this fall.

After decades of sharing Kraushaar-Rosenberger Field with Jacksonville High School, the Routt Rockets will use Illinois College’s England Stadium for home games this season.

Routt Athletic Director and head football coach Heath Wilson talked about the transition.

“JHS has been great with us playing there. But you know, high school football is played on Friday nights and sometimes at JHS we’d have to play on Saturdays. And this is an opportunity for our kids to play on a college field,” says Wilson.

Wilson also talked about Routt’s relationship with Illinois College and expressed gratitude towards the school’s athletic department.

“IC has been great with us. We’ve practiced over there with our track team, our swim team swims there, and we kind of just met this off-season, last year, and kind of talked and came to agreement where we’re going to play all our home football games there for the next two years. Building that close relationship is nice with them. They’ve got a great A.D. over there and they’ve been great to us, keeping us informed and really able to help us in a lot of sports,” Wilson says.

The Rockets have five home games this year, beginning on September 2nd with a week two match up against West Central. Routt’s home games will all be played on Friday nights with the exception of their week four rivalry game against Triopia, which will be played on Thursday, September 15th.