Rialto opens new stadium Friday

That's right - no adjustment of your computer screen is necessary. You read it correctly. The Knights will play an honest-to-goodness, home football game-on-its-own-soil at 7 p.m. Friday against Redlands.

"We're excited," Rialto athletic director Frank Camacho told the Prep-dog today. "We're hoping as many people as possible will come out to see the first game at the stadium. We're going to try to make it like a homecoming game."

Rialto fans have been waiting for their own stadium since 1992, when the school opened. But there weren't enough funds available back then to build it.

They didn't build it, and the students came anyway - pouring through Rialto's doors in a development that relieved school overcrowding in the district, but also unintentionally condemned 100s of future Knights of playing their home games at such locales as Miller, Eisenhower and Carter high schools, as well as San Bernardino Valley College and Arrowhead Credit Union Park.

Now there will be no more slipping on the hard infield dirt of Arrowhead Credit Union for Knight players, nor having to board a bus to travel to a home game.

Rialto coach Eric Rodriguez said his players are revved up.

“They’ve waited a long time and they’ll only be playing one game (this season) in the stadium, but they’re excited to play that one game," he said.