The ninth season of “Friday Night Live,” where a Bulloch County high school football game is streamed live each week on statesboroherald.com, kicks off the 2016 season Friday in Portal.
The Panthers will unveil their brand new field house Friday at the Portal Athletic Complex when they play host to Treutlen County. It will be the first of Friday Night Live’s 10 regular season games in 2016.
“The start of high school football season seems to get bigger each year and we’re looking forward to our best season yet,” said Jim Healy, who begins his fourth season as play-by-play announcer at FNL. “Portal plays in the toughest single A region in the state, but they have their largest roster in close to a decade and they have a real shot at making the state playoffs. Getting off to a good start against Treutlen is key.”
Hall of Fame announcer Nate Hirsch begins his third season with Friday Night Live and, once again, he will call the play-by-play action for Statesboro High home games during the 2016 season. The Blue Devils debut on FNL is Sept. 2, when Liberty County comes to Womack Field.
“Statesboro’s region was changed dramatically and after two down years, I know Coach Steve Pennington is looking to get back to the state playoffs,” said Hirsch, who is in the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame, the Georgia Southern Athletics Hall of Fame and the Statesboro High Sports Hall of Fame. “Statesboro will be improved. It will be interesting to see how much.”
Portal will be back on FNL Sept. 9 against Jenkins County. Southeast Bulloch, which played host to its first state playoff game last year since 2002, will play three games in a row on Friday Night Live beginning Oct. 14 against Savannah High.
SEB’s region also went through some significant changes and the Yellow Jackets are one of the favorites to earn a top seed into the AAA state playoffs this year.
(For a complete schedule of FNL games, see page X of today’s paper.)
In addition to watching the games on a PC, laptop or tablet, games are available to watch live on your smart phone and even your big screen television if it can be connected to the Internet.
Joining Hirsch on the Statesboro High announcing team will be Statesboro Herald sports writer Chris Stanley. Stanley joined the Herald staff in July and has covered high school sports for several years.
Healy, who is operations manager and editor for the Statesboro Herald, will handle play-by-play duties for the Southeast Bulloch and Portal High games.
Statesboroherald.com was one of the pioneers in Georgia for broadcasting a live high school football game every week over the Internet, starting Friday Night Live in 2008.
“Our producer Matt Bankhead really improved our graphics last year and the picture will be sharper than ever before on whatever device you watch the game,” Healy said. “It should be another great season.”
Friday Night Lives goes on the air on statesboroherald.com at 7:20 p.m. each Friday, with the kickoff at 7:30 p.m.
2016 Friday Night Live
Friday Treutlen at Portal
9/2 Liberty County at Statesboro
9/9 Jenkins County at Portal
9/16 Effingham County at Statesboro
9/23 Off
9/30 Tattnall County at Statesboro
10/7 New Hampstead at Statesboro
10/14 Savannah at Southeast Bulloch
10/21 Groves at Southeast Bulloch
10/28 Beach at Southeast Bulloch
11/7 Wayne County at Statesboro