I like to think that when the founders of Pomona and Whittier Colleges decided on their respective mascots they had in mind a gentlemanly crossword puzzle league because they really are not appropriate names for football teams. Chicago Bears vs. New York Giants- Yes! Houston Texans vs. Tenessee Titans- hmmm, not quite... Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens vs. Whittier Poets- really? That said this past saturday's competition was a real barn burner, jam-packed with excitement and surprise.
From the opening drive the Sagehens absolutely dominated, with Jake "the Snake" Caron connecting on a 44-yard TD pass to his high school teammate R.J. Maki. Dirty Dan followed this up with a flawless extra point, and a 54 yard boot down to the Whittier 11. These two kicks looked extremely routine and I think at this point in the year Dan has alot of confidence in kickoffs and extra points.
Next drive same result. Touchdown R.J. Extra point up and good. 56 yard kickoff to the 9. No problem for the blonde bomber.
Two plays later, Senior Cornerback Tyler Barbour gets a great read on a short slant route, cuts in front of the receiver, intercepts it and weaves through a sea of Poets for the Sagehens third touchdown. Another easy extra point for Dan, a 52 yard kickoff, and the Hens are up 21-0.
On the next Sagehens drive Dirty Dan lined up for a 35-yard field goal attempt which was blocked easily by an untouched poet cruising through the middle of the line. After turning the tape of the kick over to the LAPD Advanced Forensics Laboratory, I learned that Dan's claim, "it felt good" was in fact justified. Alas, we can only hope that next time the glorious life of the ball as it soars off of Dan's foot will not be snuffed out with such barbaric haste.
After a Whittier touchdown and a missed Poets extra point attempt, the Sagehens scored on what was easily the sloppiest succesful trick play I've ever seen. Caron throws a lateral over R.J's head. R.J. one hands it, whirls around and throws it back to Jake. Jake drops this pass, chases after the live ball, picks it up and whips a 50 yard bomb into triple coverage. After a bunch of poorly executed trickery the entire Poets secondary is draped all over WR Kevin Kelley who skies over the lot of them for a heroic TD. Did we have to throw 2 sloppy laterals before we threw a bomb to Kelley? No, but it sure made it cooler.
Second Half Highlights:
Dan sort of makes a special teams tackle when the Whittier return man gets tripped up near midfield and falls forward into the punishing, vice-like grip of Dangerous Dan Drehmel.
Whittier scores three times in final 5:45 bringing them to within seven, and leaving them with the painful knowledge that if they had been able to defend our poorly executed, and breathtakingly comedic trick play at the end of the first half this one would have gone to overtime. Sagehens 42 Poets 35.
So far this year Dan is 18/22 on extra points and 2/3 on field goals. Excluding the two kicks that were blocked easily, Dan is 19/22 and 2/2. These numbers put him 4th in the league in scoring among kickers. Mason Crosby-esque? No, not really. But at this point Dan is kicking as well as he has all season and may well be in the upper-tier of SCIAC kickers.
Next week the Hens take on the Redland Bulldogs, the undisputed kings of sideline spirit, pregame antics, and general "rah rah" attitude. By my official count Redlands has 95 players on the roster. So if you happen to like seeing a hundred or so guys scream a lot, curse, slap each other on the butts and bump their heads together, than Redlands, my friend, is the team for you! On a sidenote, Redlands CUT more players than we have on our team so it's not hard to imagine how a Sagehen upset might result in some kind of testosterone-induced postgame meltdown on the Bulldogs sideline.
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