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TIGHT GAME RESULTS IN COME-FROM-BEHIND VICTORY, AS HBL RETURNS TO LEWINSVILLEAfter weeks of playing on the rocky terrain of Herndon and the choppy practice fields at Marshall High, Game 7 had been hyped as a return to Lewinsville—the place where it all began. The commissioners had high hopes of securing the main field at the popular McLean park, but as has so often been the case, peewee football spoiled the plans. With the recent addition of the fence around the baseball diamond, the original HBL practice field—where Manuel Mendoza and Steve Kovach once spawned The Play—was no longer a viable option, as it’s width has become severely compromised. All was not lost, however, as Eric Espejo took note of the empty practice field in the front of the sprawling athletic complex—the field usually reserved for peewee teams on-deck. HBL Football would embark on yet another new field. Unfortunately, not everyone was clear on where the game was assembling. JP Lindo arrived late, having missed the e-mail notification and driven to Herndon first. Needless to say, he showed up with his game face on. On a day when it was unclear just how many players would be available, a surprisingly large turnout prevailed. Eric Espejo, JP Lindo, Rich Friend, Cesar Galang, Jarrod Tackett, and Sarah Davies comprised the Red Team, as they took on the Blue Team of Manny Mendoza, Donny Conty, Macky Lopez, Earl Espejo, Alan Mendoza, and newcomer Shawn Singh. With Cesar and Macky arriving just after the start of the game, Alan spent some time rotating on offense. Due to the large amount of players and a significantly more narrow field than usual, it was decided that the 2-hand-touch rule would be imposed. Another notable difference in the game was the conspicuous absence of the sideline ropes—brought on by the equally conspicuous absence of Aaron Goodmiller, out of the game nursing a recurring back injury. The game began with the Red Team winning the coin toss, but deferring the opening possession—choosing instead to test it’s defense first and look forward to starting with the ball in the second half. The decision appeared to be the correct choice, as the first three downs netted zero for Manny and his offense. But on 4th down, the unthinkable occurred. A short pass to Earl Espejo turned into an 80-yard jaunt to the endzone after a pair of missed tackles. The 2-hand-touch rule had already made its presence known. The Red Team took over on offense with Cesar at the helm, and he looked sharp—spreading the ball around efficiently for short, methodical gains. But Macky had other plans, and stepped in front of one pass to secure his seventh interception of the year. With a characteristic "Whoo! Block for me, baby!" the Mack Daddy danced through attempted tackles for a 12-yard pickup. Already in the lead and with excellent field position, the Blue Team looked to strike again. Just two plays later, however, Cesar took his revenge. A wayward pass from Manny found its way into his hands, and he eagerly returned it for 10 yards. Settling back into the quarterback position, Cesar took his team downfield—hitting Rich on a long passing play and JP on a crossing route, but the drive eventually stalled after a 4th down play fizzled. The Blue Team took over once again, and Manny sustained the drive—short passes to Donnie over the middle opened up nice opportunities for outside receivers, as Macky grabbed a 25-yard touchdown pass to put Blue up 2-0. The Blue Team defense began to feed off the early lead, and took whatever wind there was out of the Red Team’s sails. Once again, the Red Team offense stalled on downs after making it just over the mid-field mark. And once again, the high-octane Blue Team offense made them pay. This time, it was Donnie who brought the pain in the form of a 60-yard catch-and-run play all the way to paydirt, putting Blue up 3-0. A disheartened Red Team tried its best to stay the course, and Cesar moved them deep into Blue territory. Another distraction found its way onto the field at this point, however, in the form of peewee teams practicing just beyond the endzone. It seemed that with each passing moment, the young ballers and coaches inched closer to HBL action, eventually standing in the back of the very endzone that the Red Team so desperately needed to find. Eric, Jarrod, and other voices of reason finally spoke up and asked the nearest (and largest) coach if he could move the kids further down the field. When they moved all of 5 yards, Eric halted the action and decreed that what was actually the 10-yard marker become the goalline, and the current line of scrimmage be moved back 10 yards to create more reasonable separation between the Has-Beens and the Not-Yets. Rich was one of a couple players who would have preferred to catch a pass in the endzone and possibly run over somebody. "Not the kids", he clarified, "that fat-ass coach. He’s a big boy—he can take it." Perhaps it was the distraction, perhaps not, but at any rate the Red Team’s momentum had been halted, and so had their drive—turning the ball over on downs deep in the redzone. The Red Team offense may have stalled again, but their defense was growing restless. The 2-hand-touch rule had caught many off guard on this day, but while not much else had jelled for them, the defense began to click. Finally, they held Manny and company on 4th down—and on the Blue side of the field. Cesar’s offense continued to struggle, however, and saw three consecutive downs go by without reward. But a controversial 4th down pass to Rich proved to be a catalyst—controversial because a kneeling Dr. Evil appeared to have caught the ball out of bounds, a difficult call to judge without the benefit of the missing sideline ropes. Fortunately, the field itself revealed the validity of the catch, as Rich’s size 13 cleats left clear indicators in the soil that he was indeed in-bounds. "I’m not gonna drop to my knees to catch a ball that’s out-of-bounds" he explained, harkening back to the knee surgery just 5 months earlier. The 1st down ruling was upheld, and the Red Team offense breathed new life. Moments later, Cesar put them on the board with a tight touchdown pass over the middle to JP, making the score 3-1. With the clock winding down in the half, the momentum began to take a noticeable shift. The Blue Team began turning the ball over on downs, and would score only once again before halftime. Eric became the consummate playmaker on the Red Team, catching two touchdown passes to bring his team within one. Manny took the Blue offense into Red Team territory with just seconds remaining, but JP saved a touchdown by batting down an endzone pass as time expired. The halftime score had Blue clinging to a 4-3 lead, but it was a whole new ballgame. The Red Team offense was anxious to start the second half, and poised to tie and take over the game. JP assumed quarterback duties, but after moving the ball to midfield, Steamin’ Willie Beamen lofted a pass that was intercepted by the first-timer Shaun Singh. Manny wasted no time in bolstering his lead with a 40-yard touchdown strike to Macky.. The Blue Team seemed to wrest whatever momentum Red had away just as quickly as they had done at the start of the game. The active word being "seemed." What happened next was perhaps as fast a turnaround as there has been in HBL history. Willie Beamen was still steamin’ over the interception he’d thrown—a pass that Jarrod had expected Shaun to merely tip. On their first play from scrimmage, JP launched a pass to Jarrod—which he caught after a defender’s tip—and took to the house to cut the Blue Team lead to 5-4, with plenty of game left to play. On the very next play, the ornery Red Team defense reared its head again. Manny’s first down pass to Donnie on the left sideline was telegraphed, and Eric ate the interception up and ran it all the way back inside the 5-yard line. Seconds later, JP found Eric in the endzone on a short pass and the game was tied, 5-all. The Blue Team, which had seemed so dominant throughout much of the contest, now appeared visibly shaken. Manny’s first past on the next series was very nearly intercepted again, this time by a diving Cesar. The offense settled down somewhat, and moved the ball downfield. But the drive could not be completed before turning the ball over on downs. JP worked the field, spreading the ball around with Sarah and Alan making key catches to keep the drive alive. When he hooked up with Cesar on what seemed to be a short passing play, Mufasa dialed up long distance, turning the play into a 40-yard go-ahead touchdown. With that, the Red Team took the lead for the first time in the game, 6-5. Manny’s offensive troubles continued on the next drive, with the Blue team going 4 and out. JP took over once again, and looked to build a decisive lead. As they moved deep into the redzone, however, Macky came up big with an interception in the endzone—his second pick of the day. The Blue Team showed a pulse, and wasn’t ready to throw in the towel by any means. Manny marched his offense down the field, on more than one occasion taking matters into his own hands with impressive first down scrambles. He finally found Macky in the corner endzone to tie the game, 6-6. When the Red Team turned the ball over on downs in the next series, it seemed that the game had once again tilted in Blue’s favor. But this one wasn’t over yet. Jarrod intercepted a Manny pass over the middle to give his team the ball and the momentum. But with every twist and turn that resulted from the many interceptions in the game, perhaps the biggest one was the one that got away. Eric took over at quarterback for the Red Team, and when he went long for Cesar, Manny was waiting for the overthrow in the middle of the endzone. The ball drifted in like a punt, but there’d be no fair catch for Manny—instead, he very uncharacteristically dropped it. Manny, who caught a record 4 interceptions in Game 5, simply dropped this one, with the game knotted at 6. It was perhaps a chance to turn the game one last time, but it wasn’t meant to be. Eric, who’d been victimized so many times before by Manny at strong safety, breathed a sigh of relief as the Red Team dodged a tremendously big bullet. The veteran quarterback picked up without missing a beat, and marched the Red Team offense down to the 10-yard line, where he hooked up with his co-commissioner Rich on a reverse slant in the endzone to take the lead for good, 7-6. A go-ahead touchdown from Eric to Rich, during the return to Lewinsville—where it all began. On that poignant note, Eric—having his best game of the season thus far—signaled that he was done quarterbacking for the day. Whatever the Blue Team had going for them seemed to have dried up by this late point in the game, and they once again turned the ball over on downs. Yet another quarterback took the helm for the resurgent Red Team, as Jarrod tried his hand at the position for the first time this year. He looked even more like Brian Griese behind center, and he showed great promise with a quick, short strike to Eric for a touchdown, stretching the Red Team lead to 8-6. Eric’s career day wasn’t complete, though. On the next series—undoubtedly one of desperation for the Blue Team—he intercepted a tipped ball, his second crucial interception of the game. Jarrod took over again and would put even more points on the board, this time finding Cesar in the endzone for the final touchdown of the game. Time expired, and the Red Team had won a hard-fought contest by the score of 9-6.
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Number for the Game:
Did You Notice?Aaron missed his first game of the season This was the first game played with 2-hand-touch rules Rich’s streak of 5 games with at least one sack ended (see 2-hand-touch note above) Eric had a whopping 4 touchdowns and 2 interceptions Macky had 3 touchdowns and 2 interceptions In his first HBL game, Shaun had an interception Quote of the Game:ERIC: MANNY: RICH ERIC #2: Play of the Game:Eric’s sideline interception & return to the 5-yard line, with his team down by only one score. The play set up the tying touchdown and swung the momentum back to the Red Team who, only moments earlier, were down 5-3. (See JP/Jarrod play below) JP’s 80-yard touchdown pass to Jarrod on 1st down to bring his team to within one. (the play prior to Eric’s interception listed above). Rich's 4th down kneeling catch along the sideline, keeping the drive alive and leading to the first Red Team touchdown. Manny’s dropped interception in the endzone with the score knotted at 6-6. Had he made the pick, it could have turned the game for the Blue Team. Jarrod’s interception while the game was tied 6-6, leading to the game winning touchdown. Rich (#2) kicking the shrubbery after getting tangled in it on a failed interception attempt.
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Last Weeks Polls:Quote of the Week: MACKY: "Whoo!!! I got my catch!" (After making a 2-yard catch and then spiking the ball.) - 1 Vote RICH: "Awww, man--look what you did..." (To Eric, after Eric put his muddy gloves on Rich's white sleeves.) - 1 Vote AARON:
"Did you like my blocking on that one?" Play of the Week: Eric: With Blue Only down by 2 Scores, Eric caught a pass over the middle and scored on a 30 yard TD. - 2 Votes |
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