A Quiet Few Days and a Couple of American Football Games

Tues.-Fri., September 14-17, 2021 

Not too much to report as we stayed home for most of the last few days.

On Thursday though, I opted to go up to Ventura to watch some good old fashioned American football, high school style.

Due as always to Covid-19, there are not enough referees in Ventura County this season to cover all of the games if they remain scheduled as Friday Night Lights affairs. Therefore several games are scheduled to be played on Thursdays and Saturdays.

This day the Rio Mesa H.S. Spartans traveled to Buena H.S. to take the Bulldogs on in an American football triple header.

The Freshman game started at 3:30 p.m.

In order to make sure that the featured Varsity game would start on time at 7:30 p.m., the Frosh and J.V. games would play only ten minute quarters instead of the customary 12 minute periods.

It was a good back-and-forth Frosh game

Buena RB eying the Goal Line

TD BUENA!

It would not be enough for the Bulldogs as Rio Mesa's Frosh brought home a hard fought 22-20 victory.

I decided to leave the stadium to go get dinner during the J.V. game. I didn't miss much as Rio Mesa dominated this contest by a final score of 35-0.

As for dinner, I opted to visit an old, favored haunt that had recently re-opened.

The Tri-Tip sandwich was

EXCELLENT!

Fully sated, it was back to the stadium for the Varsity game.

Rio Mesa had a dominant,

time consuming ground game . . .

. . . that led to a lot of PAT

kicks like this one

Truth be told, it had been a long day and it was getting a tad cold so I left at halftime with the score knotted at 20 all.

The Second Half would be just as competitive with Buena scoring a late TD to close the gap to 34-33 in Rio Mesa's favor. 

The Bulldogs' subsequent two-point PAT attempt was stopped just short of the Goal Line with less than a minute left to play.

Buena attempted an Onside Kickoff and recovered it!

The game ended with a Rio Mesa interception on their own nine-yard line with only a few ticks left on the clock, thus upholding the Spartans 34-33 win.

Rio Mesa is now 2-2 on the season and plays their crosstown rival Camarillo Scorpions (3-1) on the road next Friday night.

Buena campaign record fell to 2-3 after their second, heart breaking one point loss of the year. They will use their bye next weekend to get things in order for their Pacific View League opener against the Channel Islands Raiders (1-4) on Friday, October 1st. 

More high school football on Friday, as I was all set to join Mike and Jacob for the Venice Gondoliers (1-1) at the Newbury Park Panthers (2-1) game.

It was the Panthers' Homecoming Game and Jacob was excited to see the game, the pageantry and the fireworks at halftime but not maybe in that exact order.

Then, near midday today, the Venice H.S. Administration called the folks at Newbury Park to tell them that they had to cancel the game because of, what else, a Covid-19 outbreak on their team. It is the second Covid-19 cancelled game of the season for NPHS.

Such is life during a pandemic.

On Saturday, we are, shall we say, anxious for a Washington Huskies (0-2) win over the vaunted Arkansas State Red Wolves (1-1).

We'll see . . .