The Washington Demons and Mid-Prairie Golden Hawks open up play today on the Gridiron for their season opener.

The Demons and Golden Hawks met in their season opener last year as well, and it was the Demons who got the win 27-8.

Both teams have had a lot of turnover though, which will bring fresh arms, hands and legs into the game.

The Demons will have a Sophomore quarterback starting his first game in Daryn Seibelius. He will have a veteran backfield, and receivers to throw to.

Washington head coach Randy Schrader says he likes Seibelius, and that he is a mature young man that can handle the position.

“We just tell him to not make that major mistake, when in doubt throw it to your mom in the stands or pull it down and run with it, just manage the game for us, give us a chance to live another day,” Schrader said. “He’s a mature young guy, he has accepted his job as an offensive leader, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens when the lights come on and he has full control of our outfit tonight, but he’s a great kid and he’ll do a great job for us.”

On the Mid-Prairie side, they bring back a Junior quarterback with Reid Miller who got significant playing time last year, but have graduated all of their receivers as well as most of their offensive and defensive line.

Golden Hawk head coach Pete Cavanagh says both lines are the areas that will need to step up, but have looked good in practice.

“I think both lines, offensively and defensively, the O-line and D-line coaches have done a great job kind of molding those guys, we have one returning starter on the O-line,” Cavanagh said. “They’ve really gotten better, I think they’ve gelled. We’ve still got some issues at times up front, but they know what they are doing, they’ll really focus and playing hard, but we need a big game upfront.”

The Demons and Golden Hawks play tonight at Case Field at 7:30, and you can catch all of the action right here on AM and FM KCII and KCIIradio.com under radio plus with pregame at 7:00 and kickoff at 7:30. The one to count on for today’s local sports coverage is AM and FM KCII.