A Great Night for Reitz and the HTF/NEWS 25 Staff!
Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 3:56PM 
Every Friday in the fall is exciting for me. My entire week builds towards Home Team Friday night. However, yesterday was amped up a 100 times more than usual. I woke up a couple of hours earlier than normal, and I was fired up. Finally, I was going to get to do play by play for a television football broadcast.
Not just any football game, two 11-0 tradition rich teams with great fan bases: Reitz and Jasper.
The night before during Countdown, my voice was giving out because of a nagging cough. I didn’t feel sick, but I could not shake the cough. So over the night and on Friday morning I drank 3 big hot teas with honey trying to take care of my voice. Props to the pharmacist at CVS who recommended a great cough syrup that worked to perfection! My voice held up all night.
When I got to the TV station, everyone was in a good mood and genuinely excited. The engineers worked around the clock all week to prepare the Reitz Bowl for a television broadcast. I saw two of the engineers outside of the station when I pulled in, and they were both confident we were going to be good to go.
You have to keep in mind that our station hasn’t done a live broadcast of a football game since the mid 1980s, so there was a lot of nervous energy of pulling this together. There were so many cables to have connected to all of the cameras, and into the press box, up to the truck, then into the portable TV control room inside a loading dock in the back of Reitz High School. All of the camera angles had to be tested, audio checked, hook up the replay machines, and get a clean signal from Reitz back to NEWS 25.
On my way to the Bowl, I stopped at a Subway and saw Memorial receiver Jon Wandling. I asked him to give us some highlights in the first half when our photographer Aaron Hancock would be there. Wandling laughed, and said no problem. The Tigers looked great in winning the 3A sectional 42-20 over Washington.
I arrived at the Bowl at 3:30pm. I knew I needed a quick escape to get back to the station after the game to host HTF, so I parked my car right near the exit. It was a long walk up, but it was worth it having a premium parking spot.
Even at 3:30pm there were already Reitz and Jasper fans lining up to get in. I love the Bowl. It is such an amazing venue. I walked the perimeter just to take it all in before going to meet up with our crew.
I had to do two reports for our 5pm and 6pm newscasts. Thousands of fans started pouring into the stands devouring the best seats, many of which were already marked with blankets from Reitz families that have gone to games for decades.
I hung out with so many Panther fans. All of them were so nice about us broadcasting the game. The fans I talked with were so nervous and excited about the game. I was so impressed with the knowledge by the Reitz fans.
Finally it is gametime. I had to open the broadcast in the stands, throw it to a commercial then race up to the press box and to my headset next to Randall Parmley. That was our only technical snafu of the night. I am not sure what happened, in that opening segment, but it looked like some wrong buttons were being pushed.
My only real troubles were trying to see the numbers on Jasper’s uniforms on kick returns. The Cats had 3 guys deep, and it took me awhile to make sure who had the ball.
Other than that, I felt pretty comfortable doing the game. My only play by play experience in football is on the radio. So I think my delivery last night was more radio-like than TV. I was setting up formations and trying to paint a picture of what was going on, but in TV you don’t have to do that as much.
After watching it on my DVR, you can tell that my brain was working 3 times faster than my mouth. I was trying to say too much at a time. I thought I stayed neutral, and I made sure to wait for a referee signal before calling a play.
The game itself was so one-sided. Like I said on the broadcast, I researched Jasper a lot during the week. The Cats are a great team. However, the Panthers are on another level. A lot has been made of the advantage of the turf, but that is just a small part of the story. Cory Brunson’s offense is so dynamic. It is more complex than many college schemes. By going 5-wide, an opposing defense has to spread out to cover everyone, and then the Panthers have the ultimate run/pass dual threat with Matt McIntosh at quarterback. That is a lethal offense that has proven nearly impossible to even slow down.
Coach Lewis told us that he accepted the ball after winning the coin toss, something he normally defers. Lewis said he wanted to score and put the pressure of Jasper. The plan worked to perfection. 3 plays, 56 yards, 7-0…and really the game was over.
The Cats are clock controlling grind out run game offense, and they just could not come from behind.
The play of the night was the double reverse halfback pass from Jeff Hudson to Matt McIntosh. All 11 Panther players on the field executed the play perfectly turning a third and 15 into a 28-6 lead.
I really love the play of Hamilton Carr and Cuda Dimmett. They really compliment Hudson well in the receiving corps. Dimmett is so difficult to take down, and Carr is like a kangaroo with great hands. The kid just leaps up and snags any ball near him, including that great interception to end the first half.
The Panthers defense is just remarkable. It was an entire team effort to completely shutdown Jasper. I would start listing names of Panther defenders who had a great game, but I would run out of space! Tip of the hat to the Reitz defense.
After the game, the Panthers celebrated their 12th sectional championship, and the NEWS 25 crew celebrated a successful broadcast. Randall and I worked well together. Director Stan Newman pulled it all together. Photographers Aaron, Mike, and Derek did a great job and didn’t get faked out too many times. Mark Glover saved the day with a TV timeout in the 3rd quarter. Ryan Jenkins was in the booth next to me spotting and feeding and Randall stats and scores.
I made the long walk to my car, and my plan worked out well. I avoided the traffic and I was on my way to the station to prepare for Home Team Friday. This was the first time in my career that I wasn’t hands on during the highlight process. Aaron Hancock, Blaine, Erica, Jason, and David Heckard were in charge of having the entire show together. There was a lot to get done.
It was pretty hectic. I wanted extended highlights to showcase all of the sectional championship games. We had almost every touchdown of every game. Our guys did an excellent job of not only shooting a lot of highlights, but editing them to tell the story of what happened in each game.
I am so happy for Mater Dei. The Cats had a tough stretch to end the regular season, but they really put it all together to win the 2A sectional. Cody Hess was a highlight machine. He is the human blur.
I think every Memorial offensive highlight was a screen pass. Grant Gribbins does a nice job of selling the screen, and then the blockers and receivers do the rest. That play to end the first half was beautiful to Steven Sheu. Ryan Hatler had another nice game at tailback.
Cody Schmitt played well for Heritage Hills. The Patriots eliminated previously unbeaten Indian Creek. The Pats have won ever sectional this decade except one. Bob Clayton’s defense pitches another shutout. That set up the showdown between Heritage Hills against Memorial at Enlow Field.
Castle’s great season comes to a close. I was surprised to see the Knights lose. Four turnovers will doom any team. The loss spoiled a great performance by Logan Hayford who had 210 yards rushing.
Props to Clay Clevenger and Henderson County. The Colonels won their opening playoff game. They did it without injured quarterback Kolby O’Daniel. Owensboro beat Grayson County 42-21, but the Devils will have to go to Bowling Green.
Home Team Friday went very smooth. My voice started to go out in the final segment, but it made it through. I can’t say enough about everyone on the HTF staff for pulling it all together. It was a challenging night to do a live two and a half hour football broadcast, and produce a 30 minute highlight football show, but they did it.
Thanks to everyone who watched last night, and thanks for reading this, I hope everyone enjoyed it!
Reader Comments (9)
After following Jasper throughout the season, I thought things would be much tighter for them. But, it still was a great season and Austin Ahrens might be one of the next big name QBs to come out of the area. As for Reitz, tell me this team isn't one of the best in 4A in the state. Great offense and a good defense. I still stand by prediction that the winner of Jasper/Reitz is a serious contender for state.
Just wondering why the game was not shown outside of Evansville? I have several friends in Newburgh that wanted to watch the game and couldn't. If you could let me know, that would be great. Great broadcast.
It was shown throughout the tri-state. I live in newburgh and have WOW and dvr'd it. Maybe your friends were trying our main channel instead of RTV 25
Lance, I had to work last night so iwasn't able to make it to the game and being able to DVR it was great. I thought your whole team did a great job. My only complaint is that the cameraman on the field didn't show the band. We saw the student section several times just no band. the kids would have loved that. they had a great year themselves making it to semi-state, first time in 11 yrs. Enough about that I was shocked by the outcome of the game never thought it would be like that. My son was part of the '07 team and is now at WKU I told him that I believe this team might just be better. He disagrees but what does dad know. Now just a thought if and lets not count chickens before they are hatched is it possiable you might do this again in a couple of weeks if thing go the way we all hope and think they will. I'm not going to mention a school name but you know what i'm thinking.
You forgot to mention that you also squeezed in going to the restoom at halftime! :) Great job on the broadcast - we DVR'd the game and watched it Saturday.
I watched the game Friday night after I got home from the game. Only one thing, and I forgot to mention it earlier. You fell into the same misconception as most people do that watch high school football. This is not professional or college football. There is no outside of the pocket rule. At the high school level, a quarterback must throw a ball to (or in the area) of a receiver, whether they are inside of the pocket or outside of it. The only exception to this rule is if the quarterback is hit while in the act of attempting a pass. I know because I had to know the rules as I was a former official. (Gave it up when my son started playing for Castle North.)
Thanks for the heads up. I wasn't sure about that, and the automatic first down on defensive holding.
Yes, the defensive holding should have been an automatic first down. I couldn't see it, but if the umpire or referee called it, it had to be interior line. I didn't see an offensive lineman trying to get off of the line to get to a Reitz linebacker (considering they were blitzing so much, Jasper's linemen didn't have to), so I don't know why it was called, but yes, it is supposed to be an automatic first down.
Great job Lance on the game as always. I know I am biased in my opinion since I am a die-hard Jasper Football Fan. However, most people don't know that Jasper High School had a death of one of their students last week and it was a very delicate situation for the kids to understand and get through. I think it had a major effect on the team and the whole school. , Reitz played a great game and they have a great team, but as anyone who had followed our team all year said, it just wasn't the same football team on the field in those Jasper uniforms that had played all year. It was just one of those life lessons that some things are more important to you than the outcome of a football game. I was very proud of my team that night! Jasper Football is a class act!