Cardinals Have Work To Do

The Soda Springs Cardinals begin their season with their third different coaching staff in three years.  The new man at the helm is Colby Fangman.  Fangman is new to the Soda Springs area and is confident that he will be able to turn around a Cardinal program that has seen better days to say the very least.  Fangman will have to do this with just a handful of experienced seniors and leaning heavily on his junior and sophomore classes.  Like with most teams much of the success of the team will come from how good their line play is.  The Cardinals had a very young line last year and that same fact remains this season as well.  Although there are several sophomores playing on the line many of them do have a year of varsity experience under their belts.  Despite a lot of youth on the team the Cardinals do have some great senior leadership.  Players like Cole Garbett, Randy Stephens, and Kayden Harrison bring a ton of talent and experience to the team to help guide the younger players.  Fangman also has his son Alexander playing at the quarterback position.  This gives coach and son the opportunity to have a close relationship in one of the most important positions on the team.

The Cardinals began their 2025 campaign on the road at American Falls against a Beaver team that has been slowly rising in the ranks of 4A teams the last couple of years.  Coach Fangman had hoped that his spread offense would put the bigger faster team on its heels but things did not go as planned.  Despite going eleven of eighteen on pass attempts the Cardinals only tallied eighty-eight yards through the air.  Soda only managed another thirty-three yards on the ground.  It was the Beavers that had the Cardinals reeling all night.  The Cardinals defense also struggled on the night giving up twenty-seven first half points eventually falling in this game forty-seven to zero.  

It wasn’t all bad however.  One of the bright spots was Owen Miller who racked up fifty-six receiving yards and came up with an incredibly athletic interception early in the second half of the game.  Something else noteworthy was as I walked the visitor sidelines late in the game when it had become clear that the Cardinals would not win I heard several cheers of encouragement coming from fans young and old.  It is clear that this is something that this team will need in the coming weeks as they work to find their footing.  Encouragement from their parents, friends and teammates.

The Cardinals will be on the road again this week and things won’t be easy for them once again.  They will travel to Ririe, which is another big physical team.  With no other games happening under the lights that night in our county you may as well make the trip over to Ririe and cheer the boys on as they face the Bulldogs.