Travelled to Grand Ledge for the first of our three games against the Comets. GL is a traditional football powerhouse around here (as opposed to us, where it’s a definite afterthought on the athletic scene); they have 10(!) teams in the 4/5 age group; we have two.
Boys are a little subdued on the car ride there; they’ve admitted to a little nervousness about facing GL. I thought that we would fare pretty well; we’re a big team and a fast team, and that’s really 80% of it at this age level. And, as opposed to last year, I think we’re really well coached.
We rolled to a 36-0 win. We were up 28-0 at the half; GL did not have a first down in the first half.
Pre-Game:
Even though Cpher’s jersey says XL; it turns out that it’s smaller than Matthew’s, and there was a little bit of unhappiness about the fit before the game. When asked at the end of the game, he said it was just fine, so, we won’t be switching….but his unhappiness may be reflected in this frown of a photo.
This is the first photo showing the cleats; he wanted black and gold. They are great for one thing; never mind that he’s the tallest on the field or the only Okemos player with a maroon facemask (he needed a special helmet to fit his big head!)……you can always find the cleats, especially when he’s on the ground in the pile!
Matthew has black and blue cleats and, as youl’ll see, is a little harder to spot in the fray.
First Half:
All of the boys were assigned positions for each half; Christopher started the game as Right Tackle on offense, Matthew started as one of the two middle linebackers on defense.
Two videos have been uploaded for your perusal; I’ve clipped out some of the video as pictures to talk about here….one video for each half. You can click on any photo to take you to the video (but, sadly, not to that exact spot in the video).
First Play of the Game: Highlighted here to show just how far Cpher was pushing kids off the line of scrimmage. This play was the first good chuckling moment for Mom and Dad of the game….
Second Play of the Game: More of the same for Cpher
The third play on this video is Matthew; for the first two drives he hung back at MLB and held the fort….the coaches finally got around to encouraging him to charge forward and make the play, and this is the first time he does what he had been very good at doing at practice, shooting through the line (even though he’s not there in time to make the tackle this time)
Fourth play on the video is Matthew’s highlight of the day; he recovers the GL fumble because he was charging forward….
Last play on the video; Matthew’s one tackle of the first half, even then, he shares it with a teammate.
Second Half:
For the second half, Matthew moves to offense as Left Tackle, and Cpher is playing defensive tackle and defensive end.
First play of this video is Matthew on offense. He’s a little more about his technique than Cpher is on the line….shooting his arms out repeatedly to keep the opponent away
Second play is Cpher located almost in the middle of the line….and taking a double team and standing them up at the line
Cpher is now playing defensive end….and this play leads to his first tackle of the game as he moves down the line and hits the ball carrier.
Fourth play is almost the same as the first…but he doesn’t get enough of the running back to bring him down.
Next play is the other Mom and Dad chuckling moment…double-teamed again, Cpher literally tosses the second guy behind him and to the ground to end the blocking
Cpher’s last tackle of the game
