{"id":81447,"date":"2025-08-20T03:16:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T03:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/81447\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T03:16:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T03:16:06","slug":"adventure-christian-begins-inaugural-year-of-8-man-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/81447\/","title":{"rendered":"Adventure Christian begins inaugural year of 8-man football"},"content":{"rendered":"

ROSEVILLE, Calif. \u2014 Adventure Christian School<\/a> in Roseville is making history with its first-ever high school football<\/a> team.<\/p>\n

Students and coaches say the launch of the program is a milestone for the school, which has been around for more than 20 years but never fielded a team until now. Instead of the traditional format, the school will play 8-man football.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels awesome. We\u2019re going to be in the history books at this school. I love it,\u201d said sophomore Ryan Fretland.<\/p>\n

Junior Josh Cherry added, \u201cIt\u2019s very exciting to be part of the first team. It\u2019s a good time, and I\u2019m glad to set the way for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea came from head coach Deane Surface, who said he proposed the program two years ago when the elementary school expanded to include a high school.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they decided to start a high school, I said, \u2018If you\u2019re going to do this right, you need to have a high school football team,\u2019\u201d Surface said.<\/p>\n

He recalled presenting a full plan to school leaders. \u201cI put together a budget, I put together a vision, I said here\u2019s what we want to do, how we want to do it, and the way it needs to be done. And they looked at me and said, \u2018Let\u2019s do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Warriors are now in final preparations for their debut game Friday night, and players say the anticipation is growing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very excited. Very nervous. I\u2019ve never played in a football game before. It will be the first time ever. Nervous is a big one,\u201d Cherry said.<\/p>\n

Fretland agreed. \u201cWe\u2019re all a little nervous obviously. A lot of us have never really played before. But if we all do our jobs, we\u2019ll be alright.\u201d<\/p>\n

Surface said the focus this season is straightforward. \u201cWe want to play football. We want to play good football. We want to play hard-nose, smash-mouth, clean, fun-loving football, and we\u2019re going to do it in Jesus\u2019 name.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for why other teams should be wary of the Warriors, Cherry said, \u201cWe\u2019re just better. We\u2019ve got a good group of guys. We\u2019ve got good camaraderie. And we have strength.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while touchdown celebrations may not be part of the playbook yet, Fretland said that could change. \u201cNo. We\u2019ll get there probably.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adventure Christian School will play their home games at Mahany Park in Roseville. The Warriors open up their season this Friday August 22nd at Foresthill High School.<\/p>\n

WATCH MORE ON ABC10 | Behind the Grind: Stories of Sacramento rising athletes | ABC10+ Sports<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ABC10: Watch, Download, Read<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROSEVILLE, Calif. \u2014 Adventure Christian School in Roseville is making history with its first-ever high school football team.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-81447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}