Will Bob's high school or Dargo's high school win the state championship?

No serious rivalry, no feud, no underlying agenda, just a rematch in the Indiana class IV state high school football championship. Two years ago Evansville Reitz beat Lowell and won the state championship capping the season with a perfect 15-0 record. This year the same two teams will meet in the state championship game again with Reitz coming in with a 14-0 record and Lowell a 13-1 record. Lowell was actually rated higher in the last ranking. Lowell was ranked 3rd in the state and Reitz was rated 4th in the state.

So, just for pure fun, who do you think will win the Indiana division IV high school football state championship? Also, just for fun, give your score prediction. Both teams are great representatives from their areas demonstrating excellent play as well as great sportsmanship. I've heard several times that it's nice to see two well disciplined and good teams meet for the state championship again. Now, on with your predictions...

On an interesting note, Evansville Reitz Memorial High School (the Catholic Reitz high school in Evansville) will play for the Indiana class III high school football state championship!

For clarity, this high school is not "my" high school, but rather the high school where my wife is a teacher, and in the nearby town where we live.

But now that that is over, let me show you why I missed the football game last night! We did listen to the game on the radio and we had phone contact with people inside the stadium so we got play by play updates of the game. That said, spending the day watching Melen was higher on our priority list.

Melen was one of only a handful of freshmen competing in a fencing tournament in Wisconsin yesterday. She was clearly matched up against some superior fencers and did not do well, but she got in a few licks and beat several fencers, even moved up in the direct elimination round . . . until she fenced the #2 ranked girl and was demolished by her. Oh well, experience is a great teacher. But in this photo below you can see the red light on the right side of the screen, that shows Melen's touch. Its pretty obvious from the photo that Melen was clearly the attacker and the other girl had barely moved off her line before Melen's saber hit her and scored.

Wow, it sounds like Melen is a regular Mariel Zagunis! C'mon now, do you have your fencing gear and experience Melen whipping you?

Uh, no I don't fence. When Melen started fencing she told both of us that this was "her sport" and didn't want us to participate. In fact, with my arthritis there is no way I could fence. There are days when its hard for me to pick up a coffee cup, so swinging a saber around is just out of the question.

Melen thinks she is better than she is. A fatal flaw of hers. She is probably TIED for the best saber fencer on her high school team. Her friend Laura, also a freshman, is just as good, and is a lefty so she actually has an advantage because most right handed fencers don't know how to fence against her. Both are very competitive with each other and share wins and losses pretty equally. But against anyone else on the team these two girls DOMINATE the team's other Saberists. Against other teams they are far less competitive. Still for her age/grade, she is pretty good.

Some of the high schools here have VERY LARGE and VERY WELL COACHED teams that actually put some colleges to shame. We have no high school fencing in N.W. Indiana, but cross into Illinois and there are a dozen excellent programs. New Trier and Stevenson high schools both have amazing fencing programs. The best fencing program in Indiana is at Culver, a private military academy near Plymouth, they have olympic level coaches and 2 dedicated fencing gyms. Now compared to those schools, my daughter's fencing team fences in the school hallways and uses tape marks on the floor to identify the En Guard and Center lines.

B_Skurka said:

Now compared to those schools, my daughter's fencing team fences in the school hallways and uses tape marks on the floor to identify the En Guard and Center lines.

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Down here in the redneck part of the state the police have pretty well shut down most fencing operations.

Dargo said:

Down here in the redneck part of the state the police have pretty well shut down most fencing operations.

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Uh huh, well we can beat that. The Lowell Ag teacher has 2 classes in fencing. Barb wire and Chicken Coop.

B_Skurka said:

Uh huh, well we can beat that. The Lowell Ag teacher has 2 classes in fencing. Barb wire and Chicken Coop.

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Oh yeah?! Down here we have to sign a waiver or its mandatory that our girls get barb wire tattoos on their arms in 6th grade!


We just opted for the tribal armband...

Dargo is at the game. I am not I have a ticket. But I'm stuck home. My daughter has to be at fencing in a little while, I got elected to drive my Melen. So my wife is at the game, she just called with bad news.

In the 2nd Quarter:
Apparently Lowell just ran the ball down to the 1 yard line and fumbled

Half time:

Historically Lowell is a 'second half' team that tends to come back from behind. But this is farther behind than they normally come back from.

Whoever that Grubbe (sp?) kid from Lowell is, he's a stud. No offense intended to the rest of the team, but he was certainly a man among boys to say the least. I think Reitz kept him from gaining too much more than, what, 400 yards maybe, and ended up winning by 14 points. It was a really exciting game to watch. As long as that Grubbe kid could walk, Lowell was still in it.

To give some credit to Lowell's coach, with about 2 minutes left in the game Reitz got the ball and was eating up big chunks of yardage and running out the clock. Lowell's coach started calling time outs to save the clock. Then a couple of Lowell players made some cheap shots, I suppose in frustration, on the same play. Reitz changed things up and passed rather than continuing running. One Lowell player absolutely laid out Reitz's QB after taking a good 2 or 3 steps at him after the ball was thrown (somehow the ref was picking his nose or something and missed the shot). On the receiving end of the pass, Grubbe chased the receiver down and dragged him out of bounds like a rag doll by his shoulder pad back collar. Again, the ref seemed to miss that call. But, as I said about giving Lowell's coach some credit, I saw him march out on the field and it looked like he was rather heated with those two Lowell players. After that, Lowell didn't bother calling their last time out and Reitz just made a few weak runs that were stopped behind the line and time ran out with the final score 23-9 Reitz.

Man Bob, you need to get some stock in that Brandon Grubbe kid. Sorry if I'm spelling his name wrong, I don't have my game info here. That kid should be highly recruited at some division I school. Even though it's been two brothers with the last name McIntosh from Reitz who have stopped Lowell in the state finals, that kid on Lowell's team would get my vote as the MVP. You missed a good game Bob!