Well, St. John finally got a victory after 2 long years of winless football. 59-0 over Ridgewood. Granted, it was against a Ridgewood team that is currently only a shell of what they used to be in the 80s and 90s, but a win is a win.
It's not often that any team scores 3 TD's on their first 3 offensive plays. By the end of the first quarter, we had run 3 plays and scored 3 TDs. The refs started a running clock almost immediately after the game started. I'm not sure if that was planned or if they saw Ridgewood only had 13 players dressed out and just decided to do it on their own.
By the time we got the score into the 30s we started bringing in some of the younger players. Not that we have that many of them either. But we did have about 25 kids dressed out tonight. We had a few more kids join the team after the jamboree wins, so they may not be on the current roster yet. They played well, and got a couple more scores before halftime.
I'm really not sure what to say about Ridgewood. The 13 kids they had played hard and I really felt bad for them. I have to give them credit for sticking it out and continuing to play ball when it would be easy to pack it in and start getting ready for basketball season. It also made it difficult to enjoy the win when it came against a team that was so obviously over-matched.
A perfect example of how their night went: During the 3rd quarter they lined up to punt. We had blocked an earlier attempt and the coaches were shouting from the sidelines to let them kick it this time. The center snapped it back and our guys put up a token rush, but didn't pass the line of scrimmage. However, the punter couldn't handle the snap, which hit him in the face mask, bounced up in the air and when he turned around to catch it he fell down and was called down by the refs at that spot with none of our guys within 10 yards of him. If it was in a movie it would have looked like a Three Stooges act.
They did have a few positive plays, and even got a first down at one point. Their QB was pretty quick and may have been able to generate some offense if their o-line had not been completely overwhelmed. I know False River dropped down to a JV schedule due to a lack of players and not wanting to get kids hurt, but I can't imagine they are in worse shape than Ridgewood. The fact that these boys are playing football and keeping their program going with only a dozen or so kids, should put any school that has dropped football to shame. I've got a ton of respect for those kids and for the school for continuing to support them.
We trek over to Beauregard Parish next Friday to take on Merryville. They'll be a step up in competition, but if we stay focused and play with the intensity we showed in the jamboree we should come back with a win.
GO EAGLES!!