By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
The Salina Liberty will kick off their 2021 CIF season against the Arlington Longhorns tonight at the Tony’s Pizza Events Center at 7pm.
While this is a non-league game for the Liberty, Arlington will pose a challenge for Salina, entering as five time and back-to-back Dallas Indoor Football League champions.
For Salina, tonight will be as much about finding rookies to fill out a veteran heavy lineup as it will be getting off to the right foot with a win this season.
The biggest remaining question for the Liberty will be at the quarterback position, where a positional battle between Mitch Kidd and Tyrie Adams continues to rage on in practice.
Beyond that, the team is still in need of mainstays at O-Line, wide receiver, and a few defensive positions to fill out a lineup that returns eight key players from the team that came up just shy of winning it all in 2019.
Not much is known about the Longhorns, who have made very little information available about their 2021 team, something that Salina will have to overcome tonight.
“We don’t know them,” Liberty head coach Heron O’Neal said. “They have film on us, we don’t have much film on them, that makes it a little bit tougher in terms of trying to figure out what they bring to the table. We’ll just have to make adjustments series by series to get a win.”
Fortunately for Salina, the venue for tonight's game will be the Tony’s Pizza Events Center, giving the Liberty a real home field advantage to open their season.
“Playing at home is always great because we have the great fans of Salina giving us that extra juice on big plays,” O’Neal said. “We’ve only lost three games here in my two years here and our fans have definitely played a role in that.”
Kickoff between the Liberty and Longhorns is set for 6:35pm in Salina and games can be heard all season long on KINA (910 AM or 107.5 FM) courtesy of Eagle Radio.
Stay tuned to the Salina Post for continuing coverage of the Salina Liberty’s 2021 CIF season.