A Win Would've Worked Better Here...

I'm often asked "who do you want to win" when I'm at games. And, my official position for my job makes me neutral. However, I'll often tell people "Why don't you ask me at halftime." I usually get a perplexed look and want to know what I mean. Well, this Friday's game between Wylie and Waco High was the perfect example of why I often say this.

I honestly don't care who win the game, yes, sometimes it's a lot easier to cover the winner rather than the loser but these pre-district games don't have a whole lot riding on them other than some bragging rights and pride. There isn't a lot of great emotion to it and relatively nothing riding on the game.

So, this week was the perfect example, of why I decide at halftime who I'd like to win. During the second quarter of Friday's game, Wylie came out and played lights out, both on offense and defense. There were a few nice long passes, some great defensive plays. And, even during the last couple of minutes of the second quarter it poured rain (very rare around here lately) which made for a few really nice shots and weather shots all together.

Basically, I had some really nice shots that I was happy with. However, just because I was happy with what I had, there was another half of football to be played. Then Waco High seemed to wake up and played lights out with some tough running plays and basically pushing Wylie all over the field. Something, that the eye test would've said should have happened the whole game. So, at the end of the game when I went to look at my photos, there just wasn't a whole lot that really told the story. Waco's game was really vanilla and kind of dull, no big plays, no big hits. They just did a workman like game and won. Oh well, these things happen, its a good thing it happened now rather than the playoffs. I still was happy with the photos I got, I just wish the outcome would've been different so they told the story a little better.

By the skin of their teeth...

After spending the night in Arlington, Saturday was a trip south to Waco to cover Wylie to cover the Class 3A state semifinal football game against Lucas Lovejoy. The winner of this game would play in the Class 3A Division I state championship game the following week. This was Wylie's third straight trip to the state semifinals. The previous two years they lost, once being stopped on the three yard line losing by four, then last year they gave up a 2-point conversion to lose the game by 1. Well this year, I guess the third time's a charm. In what was probably the most exciting game of the year (I think I'd give this one the slight edge over the Brownwood/Graham game since this was a playoff game).

The game didn't start out all that great for Wylie, the defense was playing well, but the offense was making all kinds of mistakes, bad decisions, bad throws etc. But, the second half was a different story. One thing I've always noticed about Wylie is that they always seem to make great halftime adjustments, and this game was no different. Lovejoy went down the field and scored a touchdown with 2:24 to go. Then Wylie got the ball, down by three and made a great drive down the field scoring a touchdown with 8 seconds left on a really nice play. After this, I don't even pay attention to the field. The shot of the game is going to be reaction. Since the kid who caught the winning touchdown was playing defense I found the starting quarterback who threw the pass. My camera was pretty much trained on him for the kickoff and final play of the game. I have no idea how the game ended, the play didn't matter. But I go the reaction shot I was looking for of the players running on the field as time expired. I can read about the last play of the game in the game story.