With less than a month until kickoff of the second annual VisitNich.com Bowl, final preparations are under way to shore up plans for the start of the football season in the county.
On Thursday, July 19, members of the Nicholasville Tourism Commission — the official sponsor of the bowl — met with school officials to discuss plans for the now-three-day event. This season, the Soccerama Showcase will follow Friday’s football games on Saturday and Sunday.
This season, the VisitNich.com Bowl will be hosted by West Jessamine High School, with East Jessamine playing Somerset at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 17. At approximately 8:45 p.m., West Jessamine will play Tates Creek.
Saturday and Sunday’s Soccerama Showcase will be hosted by East Jessamine at the Jaguars’ soccer facilities.
That event will feature nine teams playing in seven games — including East Jessamine boys vs. West Jessamine boys Saturday night.
Football tickets will be $7 for both games. Soccer tickets will be $10 for Saturday (five games), $5 for Sunday or $15 for a weekend pass for Saturday and Sunday.
The night of the bowl will also be a night to recognize academics as East Jessamine graduate Josiah Clements (University of Pikeville) and West Jessamine graduate Britni Vandervort (Murray State University) will receive $500 scholarships.
This year’s bowl game will bring changes to the VIP and hospitality tent run by Thompson & Shearer Farm Supply. There will be a more strict one-person-per-ticket policy following an abuse of privileges last fall. See separate story on A3 for more information.
A major headache of last year’s bowl game was parking — which has a chance to be a migraine again.
With limited parking at West High, fans are asked to park at West Jessamine Middle School and Rosenwald-Dunbar Elementary and take the free shuttle to West High to ease parking and traffic woes.
Asbury University is supplying T-shirts for the football teams, but the board is still looking for a sponsor to supply T-shirts for the soccer teams.
Both football games will once again be broadcast online along with all seven soccer games. All games can be viewed live at visitnich.ihigh.com.
Pre-game news conferences for football and soccer will be held a week in advance.
The football news conference will be Thursday, Aug. 9, at the Nicholasville Chamber of Commerce at 11 a.m.
The soccer news conference will be Friday, Aug. 10, at the Holiday Inn Express in Nicholasville at 11 a.m.
All four football coaches and some top players are expected to be in attendance. East and West soccer coaches and top players will be at the soccer press conference — there is no word yet on any other soccer coaches who will be in attendance, but they have all been invited.
