My mom had stayed a couple of nights at our house in Madisonville, and my daughter and I returned her yesterday evening to her apartment in Evansville. Given that it was the Friday night of the West Side Nut Club Fall Festival, it took some circuitous driving to get her to her doorstep. That threw us late in getting back across the bridge to Henderson for the Graves County-at-Henderson County game. In fact, when we pulled into a grocery about a quarter mile from the stadium to get the girl a pint of milk, it was already 14-0, visiting Eagles' favor, with less than a minute to go before halftime. The WSON broadcasters sounded pretty doubtful that the Cols could turn it around, so I considered heading on down U.S. 41-A to Dixon to check out Glasgow at Webster County instead. But when we pulled into the stadium parking lot, I saw that the gates were now wide open, and so I decided we'd just stick around in Henderson to watch the free carnage.
Here's a picture of the Graves County bus driver reading a book in the parking lot when we arrived.
Alas, by the time we reached the field, the gap had tightened to 14-6 in the third quarter. I asked three different people in Colonels gear how Henderson County had scored, and the best answer I got was, "They scored a touchdown, but they missed the field goal." Two other guys said they had been in the restrooms when the Colonels scored. I even got differing stories as to when the touchdown happened--at the end of the second or beginning of the third.
Anyway, Graves pushed out to a 17-6 lead, but then Henderson County scored two quick touchdowns on long passes--a rollout-right/throw-back-to-the-fake-pitched-halfback-left job where the halfback did some nice running to avoid and overpower defenders near the goal line and then a take-the-snap-and-immediately-throw-post-right situation. The Eagles never recovered.
I don't have any good analysis of this game, because my focus was dominated by my daughter. She was a real champ the whole night.
Her favorite parts were meeting a boy about her same age named Dakota, who had come to the game with his dad from Webster County to root for Graves, and then seeing three older boys playing baseball with a stick and hedgeapples behind the Graves bleachers.
She konked out not long after we got back into the car, so I scanned games the radio dial for games the whole 40 miles down U.S. 41 back to Madisonville. I caught about the last five minutes of Union County at Paducah Tilghman ("I'm not surprised at how mouthy the team is after seeing how mouthy their fans are" ... "Listen to Braves nation across the way!" ... "We gave Tilghman everything they wanted" ...), and then I heard on a syndicated show where coaches call in and report scores from around the state that Heath had lost and Madisonville-North Hopkins had won. That's four straight wins for the Maroons over Hopkinsville but only the 38th total victory in the 100-game history of the series. We got to town at about 10:30, and a lot of the Maroons' players and parents were still lingering around the locker room and parking lot. This photograph does zero justice to how strikingly beautiful I found the empty, still-illuminated stadium.
Fort Campbell 61, Todd County Central 0. The Leaf-Chronicle's Jimmy Trodglen was on the Fryar Stadium scene last night to cover the triumphant return of Falcons wide receiver Tre Powell: "I've been sitting out for seven weeks, about to cry every Thursday and actually today I got emotional and I had a nervous breakdown. It just hit me when I was heading to the field and I had a nervous breakdown and balled out. But I was happy the Lord gave me another chance. This made me appreciate life and to be a man and I'm glad to play with my teammates again."
Louisville Trinity 63, Louisville Seneca 14. Rick Bozich of The Courier-Journal was on hand to watch one of Kentucky's best players and perhaps Kentucky's best team.
And in other news ...
The plane's pilot is a nephew of an old college chum of mine.
Good jobs news from Warsaw.
Great, great stuff. Almost nothing is prettier than a lighted high school football stadium at night.
ReplyDeleteHear, hear!
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