Week Five Home Team Friday Recap
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 at 1:57AM 
Before I dive into my week five recap of high school football and Home Team Friday, I wanted to address a few comments and emails I have received.
First off, thanks so much for the feedback. Many of you are shy and email me directly instead of leaving posts at the bottom of the page, and that is just fine. A few people have said they like the behind the scenes comments I put into the recaps, so I will try to add a few more of those, just to give you a feel for what it is like back at the station.
Also, a big thanks to Rudy over at reitzfootball.com. He was gracious enough to make a post on his forum page, and I had a lot of Reitz peeps read the blog. Because of that I will try to put some extra Reitz stuff in each week. I have said this in a few speeches that I have made over the years at Reitz and Mater Dei, but it is worth repeating here…growing up in Newburgh my whole life, we are raised to dislike the Westside. However, over the years in my job at NEWS 25, I have met my closest friends either at Reitz or Mater Dei. I have always found Westsiders to be very appreciative of stories or highlights that I have done in the past. Afterall, my grandma(maiden name Doris Saltzman), was a Panthers cheerleader on the hill. I believe she graduated in 1942, but I am going to have to ask her again. So I do have some Westside roots! I am one of the few weird ones that honestly likes both Reitz and Mater Dei. Now that I have completely sucked up as much as possible…I might as well start with Reitz…
I have to start by giving myself props. I was editing around 6:10pm on Friday and I got a call from our Internet Radio play by play man Warren Distler. He asked me my prediction on the Reitz/Castle game. I told him I thought the Panthers would win by 28. Of course, that is not any kind of knock on Castle. I am a Knight afterall. However, Castle is such a young team. Doug Hurt’s squad has really been a heckuva lot better than I thought at this stage. Think of the talent Castle lost to graduation. Combine that with the fact that Reitz is pretty loaded, especially at the skill positions. The Panthers had not really put together a solid 4 quarters of football all season up to that point. Tony Lewis had a lot going for him with motivation, and he certainly got the most out of his kids. The perfect storm came together for the lopsided 42-7 victory. Lewis really kept his offense balanced with the pass and the run. Matt McIntosh had 271 total yards and two touchdowns. I think we saw the true potential of the Panthers this season, and if you are a Castle fan, there’s no reason to hit the panic button. The Knights will continue to gain experience, and as Coach Hurt told us in the pre-season, his team will come together late in the year.
On my Friday 6pm sportscast, we had our first three wrap preview since Bo McFall left us for WFIE last year. Bo and I are still close friends, and we go out at least once a week. A wrap is a report from a stadium that usually has interviews from coaches, but not always. We keep them shorter than a regular story. Anyhow, Randall did a wrap from Castle, David Heckard made his sports debut from Enlow Field, and ace reporter Aaron Hancock had one from Central Stadium. It looked great. Hopefully, we will be able to pull it off again this Friday. We are down a sports person. Because of the sagging economy our station did not allow us to replace our #3 position. So it is just me and Randall holding everything together. It has been a real challenge, so any and all help from others in the building is greatly appreciated! David is an enormous football fan, and no one works harder than Aaron.
I better get to an Eastside school, or I am going to lose my membership card!! So after anchoring the 6pm sportscast, I head to the game I am covering: North at Memorial. It was an awesome atmosphere at Enlow Field. There was a ton of tailgating before the game. I saw a lot of that the previous week for the Reitz/Memorial game. I took a picture with my iphone.
I knew this would probably be a lopsided contest. The Huskies are without their quarterback, and let’s face it…Memorial is pretty darn good despite its record. On the first drive, North got the ball near the red zone, but a 4th down conversion failed. On the Tigers first play from scrimmage, quarterback Grant Gribbins hit Jon Wandling on a slant and Wandling did the rest going all the way down to the 10. Next play Ryan Hatler threw his body over the goalline for a touchdown. However, it wouldn’t be that simple of a night for Memorial. The Huskies did a good job of containing Memorial’s offense for most of the first half. North benefited from a mind-boggling awful call by the refs. I am sure you saw it on HTF. When I am shooting a game, I typically stay on the sideline. However, with Gribbins, I intentionally went to the back of the endzone. The reason is Gribbins can literally go anywhere on the field. He can roll one way, and throw the other. So by being in the back of the endzone, I am less likely to get faked out, and I might luck into a sweet highlight.
Memorial is on the three yard line and is about to score. DW Sexton fumbles the ball. It squirts through a few hands and lands in the endzone, where it is clearly scooped up by a Memorial lineman. What is more amazing is one of the referees couldn’t have been more than 5 feet from the recovery. Now of course I know Memorial recovered it. Heck the Tigers lineman is holding the ball. The referees all huddle right next to me, and I can see it in the back judge’s eyes…he has no clue what to call. In comes another official saying, “I have white ball”(North was wearing white). I was almost tempted to say to the refs, “It was clearly a Memorial touchdown.” Of course there is no way I would ever do that. Indeed, they call it a touchback and give the ball to North. I showed a few people on the Memorial sidelines the replay in my camera. I don’t want to be too rough on the refs. They get it right most of the time. At the same time, that was a huge missed call. It not only took 7 points off the board for Memorial, it gave North the ball! The Tigers got the ball right back off an interception. Gribbins threw a perfect spiral to Hatler right at my camera for a second touchdown (thanks Grant!). Now with: 35 left in the half, I head to the exits to get back to the station. One of my co-workers was in the stands and told me I missed a third touchdown. He was getting food and he missed it too. I still don’t know how Memorial scored to make it 20-0 at half. I assume it was a defensive score. The Tigers end up rolling to a 40-13 win. That sets up their Catholic showdown with Mater Dei on Friday.
Speaking of Mater Dei, the Cats had a hard fought victory against Harrison. Tailback Cody Hess had another great game on the ground for MD. He rushed for 139 yards and 3 touchdowns. Mater Dei is now 4-1, and is still that 2 point conversion in overtime against Central away from being 5-0. Mater Dei hosting Memorial will be our HTF Showdown game. I hope it is a good one.
The best game in the city took place at Central Stadium. Last week, I said Bosse was going to chalk up an impressive win this season. It almost happened against the Bears. The Bulldogs had a 28-13 lead late. Then a wild fury of touchdowns began. Central quickly scored twice to make it 28-27. There is only around 6:00 left in the game, and I am scrambling to find a photographer that can get to the Northside for the ending. David Heckard was coming from Washington, but when I got a hold of him he was almost back to the station. I called Aaron, and he had just left Central Stadium. It was 9:05pm. Aaron still had to drive all the way to Castle, edit his two games he shot, feed them back to the station, then setup to shoot Randall’s live from Paradise. I almost had him go back, but I couldn’t chance the whole show going down the crapper. Too much was on the line, and all of their games were near the top of HTF. The Dogs counter with another score going up 35-27 with 3:00 left in the game. Central scored, but missed the two point conversion to make it 35-33 Bosse. The Bears had one more touchdown left in them, and pulled out a wild 39-35 victory. It is another gut-wrenching loss for Bosse. Andy Owen’s team is 4-1.
Heritage Hills received one gift after another in Poseyville. The Vikings fumbled the opening kickoff to the Patriots. If you are trying to upset the Pats, you cannot turn the ball over! North Posey never recovered, but the Vikings did shutout the Patriots in the second half. Heritage Hills looked out of sync on offense, but won 26-7.
Jasper had no problems with Vincennes. The Alices program has really fallen off. Someone told me the school’s enrollment is way down. I hope Lincoln can bounce back soon. Jasper is now 5-0 and looks pretty unstoppable.
If someone can figure out Mt. Vernon, please email me. It has been five weeks of ups, downs, lefts, rights, and even some diagonals for the Cats! Washington is a good team. The Hatchets beat 1A power North Daviess the week before. However, Mt. Vernon makes the long bus trip to Hatchet country and comes away with a very impressive 21-13 win. Props to MV.
Another unbeaten resides in Spencer County, but it is not Heritage Hills. South Spencer is 5-0. The Rebels are for real. This team could be as good as the ’03 semi-state team. Bruce Green has now beaten two of his possible sectional opponents in Southridge and North Posey. We still have four weeks to go, but it could be a Mater Dei vs. South Spencer matchup for 2A.
Back at the station, we are all keeping an eye on the Owensboro at Bowling Green game. It pitted two of the very best teams in the entire state of Kentucky. We could have asked our ABC sister station in Bowling Green to shoot the game for us, but for a game of this magnitude, I like to do things ourselves. The Blaine Train made the trip to BG. Blaine could only shoot for a half because of the hour and a half drive, but he still got ever touchdown scored in the game. I hated seeing that the Devils lost 26-21. I really thought they would go unbeaten. One of my twitter followers @jcknox80 told me the Devils dropped a lot of passes.
We got our first look at Perry Central. The Commodores have been one of the best teams in 1A. They also have the most complaining fans in the Tri-State. I appreciate their loyalty to their team, but I was already getting emails that they don’t get enough attention after just ONE home game. My PC peeps, please know we would have highlights from the Commodores every Friday if we could. However, geographically that is impossible. It is over 90 minutes from your field to our station. It also hurts, that most of your road games are even further away from us than Leopold. We will be there for your home game with Mitchell on October 2nd. Plus, you have a Wilkerson at tailback!! You know I have to get him on the air! Mike Spencer is one of the best coaches in the Tri-State. Coach Spencer has a mind-boggling record of 106-18 in a decade at the school. The Commodores win over Tell City improved PC’s record to 5-0.
Week 5’s HTF show was the first one of the season that wasn’t insanely stressful. I was actually able to take my place on the set a good 5 minutes before I went on the air. That is huge for me. Time to collect my thoughts, go over my shot sheets (scripts with the highlights written on them), and makes sure I have all of the scores. Even though we had photographers in Washington, Vincennes, Perry Central, and Bowling Green, we were organized enough to have it all come together really smoothly. Our only technical glitch is the scoreboard with the games we didn’t have highlights of did not run where it normally does. However, because of quick thinking by the HTF producer Jason, you couldn’t tell on the air. About 5 seconds before I was supposed to say, “Now here’s a look at the rest of the scores”, Jason said in my earpiece “NO SCORES, NO SCORES”. So I just tossed it to commercial break. It turned out when I typed up all of the full screen scoreboards, I used the wrong template. You have to use the correct template for any kind of graphic that you see on the screen. Luckily Jason caught the mistake, and quickly changed every single scoreboard during the 2 minute commercial break in time to get all of the scores on when we returned. It also gave me a chance to give props to Forest Park for another win.
This week I will be at the Mt. Vernon at Boonville game. Maybe I can see for myself what is going on with the Wildcats! The Pioneers are 4-1. Their lone loss was to Jasper. Not too shabby for Coach James Blankenship’s club!
Thanks for watching HTF every week, and thanks for reading my ramblings! Please spread the word about my blog. If you have any questions or if you would like me to talk about a particular team, leave me a comment at the bottom, or email me using the link on the left.
See y’all at 10:35pm Friday for NEWS 25 Home Team Friday LIVE!
Reader Comments (5)
Owensboro and Bowling Green looked like it was going to be a track meet when I was down there for the half. Surprised to see that there was little scoring after I left. Both teams are tough and every one of the Owensboro fans that I talked with told me that it was going to be too close to call. If they happen to read this, I would like to thank them for the turkey leg.
Speak for yourself on disliking the westsiders. Some of us could be married to one, quite possibly have a child playing on either side of town and/or have family that grew up on either side of town. Not to mention John Lidy taught me to respect the competition. Which I am sure Doug Hurt, a Lidy disciple, teaches the same to his young men. Please don't paint a false picture. Especially with you being in the media. Even if you are being facetious a lot of individuals will take you literally.
Congratulations to the Reitz Football team and all of those involved on your victory over the Knights. I wish you best.
I think you took my sarcasm way too serious!! I thought it was pretty clear it was tongue in cheek!
Anyway, thanks for reading, and commenting! I do appreciate it.
Dear Lance, I have been wondering for a long time if there would be a way to get a copy of the piece you did after my REITZ Panthers won state in 2007. My son was part of that team and I had it recorded on my DVR but about six months ago it crapped out. If there is any way you could help me I would be very grateful.
By the way I always thought you did a great job covering REITZ and during our title run you proved it over and over. As a former Panther and a Panther DAD I say thank you. I think you know there is a lot of dislike for the REITZ nation. For someone that wnt to Castle to do the great job you have for REITZ all I can say is again THANK YOU.
Thanks Greg, that is very nice of you. I put that video up on youtube, is this the video you are talking about? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxOiM1fBIww
Let me know if that is what you are looking for.
Again, thanks so much for the comments. That Reitz team was so much fun to cover!! I love it when our teams down here whip the central Indiana teams!!