I love it, I love it, I love it! Why am I so excited, read the high school football match ups in today's Galveston County Daily News, then look at the final score and you'll see.
Tonight's game was played at Etheredge Stadium in La Marque. I haven't been down there since I was a senior in high school (many, many moons ago) so I decided to drive down there this morning and get the lay of the land. I knew that I would be arriving late to the game and it would be after dark when I got there, so I wanted to see where I was going.
And why did I get there late, well, tonight was my oldest daughter's first choir concert. Why did the junior high schedule a choir concert on a Friday night during football season? Well, the answer is - I don't know. Several people have asked the same question. In the audience, there were several people in their Friendswood Mustang best, and lots of parents were checking their cell phones often. As soon as the concert was over, the only thing you heard people ask was, "What's the score?" or "Who's winning?" or "How far into the game is it?" Several families made a bee line to the parking lot to head to La Marque. I was lucky enough to find a friend of my daughter's and her mom who were planning to drive to La Marque, just the two of them. So we rode together. It was great, I made a new friend and my daughter got to visit with her friend. Then, on the way back, my new friend's husband joined us, and I got to make another new friend. More people, who live close to us, and have at least 2 things in common with us. :)
Now, for the game. From what I heard, there were a few memorable moments in the first half. I was told that Jordan Wood made his first interception of the game (way to go Jordan!) and one of the officials needs a refresher course. From what I heard, penalties that should have been marked as 15 yard penalties were marked as 20 yards more than once (maybe he just needs a refresher on counting to 15 and 20). And some bad calls were made. However, I was also told that Coach Van Meter never threw his hat during the first half, so things couldn't have been too bad. We arrived at the game with less than two minutes in the half. The score was Friendswood 27 - La Marque 13. I'm not sure if La Marque missed the point after kick, or if it was blocked.
Friendswood, as always, had a great half time performance. Well, what I saw and heard of it anyway. Since we were the visitors, we saw the show from the back. Not great sound quality back there. I was very impressed by the color guard at one point. I saw at least 20 rifles spinning in the air. They went up together, all went the same height, and were all caught at the same time. Good job girls. La Marque, it appears, does not have a marching band this year, which is really sad. A marching band not only provides an awesome opportunity for students to learn music and discipline, it also adds to the atmosphere at the games. As Friendswood's band showed last week, a band can cause an opponent to make mistakes as well as pump up their own team. La Marque did have some people in the stands wearing La Marque's yellow shirts with jeans who played percussion. Unfortunately, they only seemed to know one cadence. They did not perform at half time. La Marque's portion of the half time show was to be twirlers who were to perform to a CD as well as their drill team (they had 10 - 15 members) who danced to a CD. Sadly, there were some technical difficulties and the twirlers never made it onto the field.
It didn't take long for me to see why everyone was talking about Tim Wright before the game. La Marque's running back is talented - he is fast as well as strong and is able to find or make openings. At the end of a later play, I saw him go several yards with every Mustang defender who was on the field trying to take this guy down. He is rather impressive.
During this same drive, I saw why La Marque relies so heavily on their run game as opposed to their passing game. During that same possession, Garrett Ward almost intercepted the ball (I think that would be his first of the year) and on the next play Jordan Wood came down with his second interception of the evening. A few plays later, Friendswood scored bringing the score to 34 - 13 with 9:15 left in the 3rd quarter.
It didn't take long for La Marque to answer back. And unfortunately, we helped them along the way. With 7:37 left in the 3rd quarter, La Marque scored. After a time out, La Marque's special teams lined up off to one side, leaving the kicker and the spotter standing alone in the center of the field. After a few seconds, everyone shifts to their normal positions. I've only seem one other team do this, and I think it was Lake Travis (though don't hold me to that). I still don't understand the point of that move.
When La Marque kicked the ball to us, our receivers attempted a trick play. The person who caught the ball turned to face backward and pretended to hand off to several runners. It was a neat play, but they did it on every single kick off. It worked sometimes. Other times it just seemed to eat away time and cost us yards. I would suggest that this be a "sometimes" play as opposed to an "every kick off" play.
On the next set of plays between touchdowns, we caused the only fumble I saw tonight. Unfortunately, the ball rolled out of bounds before we could scoop it up and run with it. So, La Marque remained in possession of the ball. Also during these plays, I saw Wright's one man show and his incredible strength and determination. With all the players trying to take him down, Mr. Kennemer was in the stands yelling "Strip! Strip!" Of course, I new immediately what he meant and didn't think anything of it. The next time he yelled it, he got some funny looks from the people in front of me and I realized why it was funny. The guy sitting behind me, between me and Mr. Kennemer pretended to take his shirt off and said, "Well, if you think it will help." After that, Mr. Kennemer changed his comments to "Strip the ball! Strip the ball!" During this drive, La Marque scored again. This is the closest I saw the score. Friendswood 34 - La Marque 27 with 2:43 left in the 3rd quarter.
After the catch of this kick off, our team began a series of unfortunate events. Matt Kennemer was running with the ball, the goal line was in his sights and there was only one yellow jersey that looked like he could catch him. But then, Kennemer's blocker got tangled up with the man he was blocking. Both players hit the ground, and Kennemer tripped over them. If it had happened a little farther in front of him, Kennemer probably could have jumped the players and kept going for the end zone. But as it was, they were just too close and Kennemer ended up tripping over the two. I don't blame the blocker. Like I said, unfortunate event. It was a one time thing. A few plays later, our ball carrier (didn't make a note of who it was, sorry) tripped over his blocker (different blocker) costing us yards (though probably not a touchdown this time.) This might have been a good time to take a time out. The team looked a little frustrated. But we ended up punting and giving the offense a breather and time to settle down.
The next time our offense had the ball, I saw another unusual play. Maetzold passed to Canada. There were two Cougar defenders there. The ball bobbles between a couple of players before landing in Canada's hands. However, the play was ruled an incomplete pass before he caught the ball. From where we were sitting, it didn't appear that he had gone out of bounds. Maybe this was that same ref who needs a refresher course? A few plays later, something happened that has the entire Friendswood side on it's feet booing the officials. I did not boo, because I try to teach my kids respect. But I wanted to do alot more than boo. Maetzold passed the ball to Justin Battle who made a wonderful catch as he was running across the field (in). But before his feet even touched the grass, a La Marque defender grabbed his face mask, jerked his head around and threw to the ground. It literally looked like he was trying to take his head off. Immediately a flag was thrown and Friendswood cheered. Then we heard what the official penalty was. Do you think it was a personal foul? Perhaps unnecessary roughness? Maybe he was about the be the second player of the night to be ejected from the game for personal fouls. If you guessed any of these, you would be wrong. Friendswood was given a 15 yard penalty for having an ineligible receiver down field. Are you serious?!?!? The La Marque defense just tried to decapitate Justin Battle and you're calling an ineligible receiver against us?!?! Then, as they are marking off the penalty, instead of moving the ball 15 yards, they move it 25!!! And all the while, Van Meter is arguing with the officials (and rightfully so - he didn't throw his hat, but he did throw his headset) and the La Marque coaches are using the distraction to sneak onto the field and talk to their players. There were 2 coaches on the field talking to 2 different players. These coaches did not go back to the sidelines until the next play started. At this point I did yell to the field, but I was yelling for La Marque's coaches to get off the field. Last year, the first or second game of the season, several penalties were called for coaches being on the field. And these coaches were just doing their jobs from a few feet inside the playing area. They were not on the field talking to the players. Where was that penalty tonight? And what happened to the player who made sure Justin Battle will need a good chiropractor? Absolutely nothing. As you can probably tell, I am still upset over that. The officials jobs are to make sure the game is played fair and safe. Not allowing WWE stuff to go unnoticed.
Okay, rant over, for now. Back to the game. If you know the Mustangs, you know that the players made sure than wasn't the end of it. Two plays later, Friendswood finds the end zone! With 11:46 left in the game, the score was Friendswood 41 - La Marque 27.
What happened on the kick off was something I'd never seen before. The kick went right into the chest of on of La Marque's front linemen. The lineman caught the ball, and the La Marque offense was able to start near midfield. A few minutes later, they were not so lucky. I'm not sure if Friendswood's defense did a great job here, or it La Marque's offense made a mistake. The quarterback went to fake a hand off, and there was no one there to fake to. Then, he went to hand it off to someone else, and again; no one was there. He had to scramble and didn't get very far. But that' okay, not long after Maetzold showed them what it looks like when a QB scrambles, and gets a first down in the process. Not sure if they were watching though.
With 6:48 left in the game, Friendswood scored again. Now the score's 48-34. High scoring game right? But it ain't over yet, folks.
La Marque was trying to drive toward the end zone, but threw a beautiful pass that was intercepted by Jordan Wood (his third of the night!). That, apparently was the cue for the La Marque fans to begin pouring out of the stadium. More than 1/2 their fans were leaving. I guess they thought that was it. They only missed 2 more touchdowns.
Of course, the next touchdown went to Friendswood. An exhausted Johnson got us close to the end zone and Maetzold was able to get in. This brought the score to 55-34 with 2:52 left in the game.
Still not over, as I said, there were 2 more touchdowns, and that's just one. So, who do you think got the last touchdown of the game?
If you said Friendswood, you'd be wrong. La Marque scored again. But by this time, so many of their fans were gone, there wasn't a loud celebration from their side of the stadium. So now, with 23 seconds left in the game, the score is 55-41.
La Marque went for the onsides kick and it almost worked. Pete Maetzold took a knee and that was the final play of the game. Final score Friendswood 55 - La Marque 41. That brings Friendswood to 7-0 for the season and 3-0 in district play and La Marque to 5-1 for the season and 2-1 in district play. I had told my dad earlier in the week that I thought Friendswood would win by 7. When the Galveston County Daily News came out with their predictions, my dad asked me if I wanted to revise my predictions. But I stood by the Mustangs. Turned out I made a good decision. And my point spread was only off by 3 points.
Next week, Friendswood will host Manvel for Friendwood's 2010 Homecoming game. If I remember correctly, we don't have that great of a record for homecoming games. I'd really like to see us put a stop to that. Manvel will come into this game after a win in Santa Fe (10-35). Manvel now has an over all record of 5-1 with district games being 1-1.
I've heard a few people ask, is this our year? I don't want to put the cart before the horse, but I sure hope so. I'd love to have a reason to go visit my friends who live in the metroplex this December.
So, now do you know why I'm happy? I just love it when my team is chosen to be the underdog and comes out on top.
http://galvestondailynews.com/story/181918
Also, something else of note. I find it sad that Maetzold is not being courted by college football scouts. Maetzold can pass, and run. Friendswood runs a no huddle offense, and very rarely does the offense not know what to do. Maetzold can see the whole field and once (not sure how he does it) and wait for someone to be open. Then he can deliver the ball straight into the hands of the open receiver. He has no problem holding on to the ball if a receiver can't get open and is not afraid to take a hit. Any team would benefit from having him in their uniform,
I haven't heard yet which, if any colleges are looking at Matt Kennemer and Zach Hardy. Both are worthy players who can make plays happen.
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