GV Football - Game 9 at Springfield

The 8-0 Garnet Valley Jaguars traveled to my alma mater, Springfield, for a Central League away game last night. The game was played in Springfield's new stadium, in the shadow of the new high school. It was surreal, but more on that later.

We got out to an early 6-0 lead, were tied at 6-6, and then pulled away to a 36-6 halftime lead. There were rushing TDs and passing TDs. A blocked punt. A kickoff flubbed by Springfield that we recovered. A 62 yard off tackle TD run by Shane Reynolds. A 40 yard TD pass to Sean Gallagher. Two more TDs each by Ryan Saunders and Joey Halloran. Lots of good stuff.

Grace in the Stands

Springfield was sloppy, and the best analogy I can make was that it was like a tennis match where all you really needed to do was keep the ball in play and wait for the opponent to make an unforced error. Of which there were plenty. And then you methodically take them apart piece by piece.

Conducting Stand Tunes

And sloppy brings me to another point. GV looked like a unified force, all players wearing exactly the same uniform, down to the pink cancer awareness socks worn by the players. Springfield, by contrast, wore nice uniforms of dark royal blue with gold (yellow) trim. But many of the players were wearing jerseys the equivalent of half shirts. And under these jerseys were t-shirts in blue, yellow, light gray, dark gray and white. Some had long sleeves. Some didn't. It kinda looked like a bunch of kids rolled in off the street and put the uniform jersey over top of whatever they happened to be wearing. Sloppy. Very sloppy.

This annoyed me probably way more than it should have, but in addition to being a parent of girls that are GVHS classes of 2017 and 2022, I am, and will always be, SHS class of 1984. When kids put on the SHS uniform, how they look reflects on themselves and on all of the SHS students that came before them. You represent many thousands of us. Including me and my classmates. Show a little pride in the blue and gold. Your band wore a uniform. Your football team wore a do-it-yourself kit. It's a small thing but it matters.

You can make a strong case that discipline and teamwork starts with the small details and works outward from there.

Anyway, I digress, as I often do (what with it being my blog and everything)...

Backups played most of the second half, which was a methodical exercise in grinding out rushing yards and winding down the clock. Final score GV 49-6.

We have now outscored opponents 451-104, or an average of 50-12 per game, and are now ranked #7 in the entire state of Pennsylvania, up 1 spot from last week, and 2 spots from the week before that. All this with pulling starters early and not running up scores just for the sake of it.

Max Busenkell's 21 passing TDs in a season (including 3 more today) extends his record, with the old all-time GV record being 17. Sean Gallagher's 11th receiving TD extends his all time season record, with the GV record formerly at 6. Ryan Saunders had two more rushing TDs, giving him 16 total TDs for the year (14 rushing, 2 receiving).

More importantly (!?!) the band has played Saints 64 times.

All of the football and band stuff aside, this return to Springfield was...surreal...bittersweet...or perhaps just weird. I was going to add my thoughts on this to the end of this game recap post, but that would not do it justice. Look for another post soon.