This was the team they fell 6 inches short of scoring a year ago for the win, and revenge was not as sweet as you would think, but a win's a win. I hate to harp on it, but last year the Coogs had plenty of chances to pull out a win as time expired, including a 4th and about 6 inches as time expired and they could not get in the end zone. In a way, the same thing happened to the other team, Northeast last night towards the end of the game.
I guess I should back up, they had a Thursday game this week. It was frustrating because Baby A had gone to bed Wednesday night with high hopes of demolishing this team, I got home from work as he was already in bed, so I poked my head in to ask him how his day was and he was already in bed but excited saying that they had seen game film from the other team and felt very confidant that they were going to win. I said good but you still have to perform, nothing is ever given to you. The morning was then fun in that he decided to get in the Homecoming spirit and took his varsity jacket to wear for spirit color day, the first time he officially wore his jacket that he got at the end of last year. He had even asked us if he could miss his History class to go to the Pep Rally. Because he takes college classes, he has not been able to attend any of the pep rallies but I told Wife "come on, we should let him go, he's still a kid and with these college classes, he is going through high school acting like a damned grown up all the time!" Wife agreed and he went, only to find he did not like it because it was held outside and there was no microphone so they couldn't hear anything, but still, he was part of it.
The game itself was sloppy in the first half, penalty after penalty the whole first half. They could not get out of their own way, any positive play was negated by a holding call or an offsides call, it was downright annoying. One way or another, they managed two beautiful bombs in the 2nd quarter that got them two touchdowns, so at the half, the score was 13-13, both teams missed their 2nd extra point attempt. The other team did not look like much, they were down to less than 30 players on the sideline. When their team was on the field, there were less than 20 other guys on the sideline. Still, they played as strong as they could, and they did move the ball on a couple of occasions all the way into the end zone in the first half.
The Coogs must have made some half time adjustments, they came out playing much better, it is also possible the other team just got tired because after the half, both their demeanors changed. The Coogs went most of the 3rd quarter without a penalty and the Raiders couldn't stop committing stupid penalties that hurt them like jumping offsides and moving before the ball is snapped. Our boys managed a beautiful drive in the 4th quarter, and managed to produce a score, even taking a couple chances on 4th down and going for it. They went for it after the touchdown and even scored a 2pt conversion to make the score 21-13. They then kicked the ball and the Raiders went to work with about 9 minutes. They were very efficient or the Coogs were playing very conservative because they quickly moved the ball all the way inside the 20 yard line. Then their problems started, with multiple false starts from the line, including a critical one on 4th and inches, they got a false start and were moved back 5 yards, making it 4th down and 6 instead from the 4 yard line back to the 9 yard line or so. They went for a pass in the end zone and luckily, one of our boys intercepted the ball, so we got the ball back at the 20 yard line, with about 7:25 left. This reminded me a little too much of last week when we looked at the time and then the other team scored 20 points in 6 minutes. This time, the Coogs kept the ball on the ground and as Baby A said, they kept running off his side, and he kept opening the hole so the runner could get the yardage to keep making first downs, I love Mijo's cockiness sometimes. It got a little nervous after a huge penalty that negated a long 11 yard run back with a holding call, so the ball went from the like 29 yard line back to the 50, but at this point there was only a minute and 20 seconds or so and it was 2nd down and the other team ran out of timeouts, so we were able to just run the clock out.
It was awesome watching the boys finally celebrate like they did, dancing and hugging on the field. Mijo said they sang on the bus the whole way back to campus. He said he was most surprised that most of the kids don't know Queen. Someone put "We Are The Champions" which everybody loves for the chorus but before the song gets there, people were like "what is this? and "turn this shit off!" He even said the coaches taught them an old school chant and they were dancing to that, this boy never shows us his goofy side, and there he was doing a little dance, it was nice to see him happy.
His shoulder is almost healed, I think, he said it doesn't hurt anymore, but he did manage to rip a third of a nail off, so the finger looks all raw and painful. He said his finger must have got caught in a jersey during practice and he tried to fix it, but it got snagged on a player during the game and there was even blood on it, it looked like it hurt and he did say it was tender. Mijo is certainly playing harder this year and the little injuries are piling on, he also had a little area near his palm where the skin was peeled off and he had a sort of raspberry burn where the skin looks tender. I guess those are all part of the game.
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