Friends, most intense high school game of my life tonight. "Intense" is not even covering the level of excitement and energy going on over in Chantilly this evening. Chantilly vs. Langley and folks, we knew walking up, these Langley boys were built big and looked good. Chantilly scored first and for essentially the remainder of the first half of the game, Langley was on their tail. Langley's got a good quarterback. One play of the game oldest nearly had a perfect quarterback sack. He missed the quarterback by inches. He did cause him to fumble the ball, even though those biased refs didn't give it to Chantilly. The Hub was flipping out that Oldest missed it. Now that, guys, would have been an amazing play for him. You could see from the stands he almost had it. He roughed him up a bit and the boy did stumble and drop the ball but if only he had got him good.
My favorite worst play (for us) of the game: Chantilly scores, on a kickoff return Langley fella runs a 93 yard straight touchdown. It was choreographed so beautifully if i didn't know better I would swear Chantilly handed it to him on a silver platter; my son being one of those servers.
Bad news is we go into the half trailing to ole' Langley. They definitely came out to win. Chantilly has a lot of heart, as was demonstrated tonight. They fought hard for this game. 3rd quarter, Oldest goes down. Friends, gasp! He is helped off the field limping and I can see he is hurt badly. He is visibly crying and so angry that he is out of the game. The passion in this boy's heart is amazing. He told me this morning he is married to football right now, and at that moment this evening I could totally see his investment.
Sure enough, friends, he was out the remainder of the game. I would venture to say there is something magical about a football team. As I watched my hurt son sit on the sidelines working with the athletic trainers, struggling to stand, and finally resigning himself to sitting out the remainder of the game, systematically, all of his teammates came over and gave him words of encouragement, hits on the shoulder pads and head, hugs, tears no doubt. An especially emotional hug from a friend lasted a minute or longer. If the boy could have been micro phoned for sound I am confident I would have been in tears. This, to me, would be why boys play football.
The Hub went down to talk to the athletic trainer to find out my boy was hit from behind. An illegal hit. Sorry to my brother-in-law (who hails from Langley) but I know that Langley boy was trying to take my boy down! The refs apparently didn't see it. Oldest says he was standing still and the rather large dude tried to do a chop block (I assume you football-ers out there will know what that means). Instead of going for the thighs he hit his ankle. His ankle for goodness sakes! All we could see from the sidelines was the play in motion and Oldest jump in the air looking as if he was in excruciating pain and down he went.
Later on, they wrapped his ankle, told the Hub he needed to go to the emergency room after the game and with any luck he would only miss a few games. The athletic trainer thinks perhaps a torn tendon, possibly a fracture. Folks, I'm not holding on to luck. I'm praying it's essentially nothing. Just bruised. Pray with me, won't you? Football is everything to Oldest right now. He wants the x-rays done now so he can be at practice tomorrow ready for whatever rehab he needs. If he can't play, this is not a good thing.
Something about the second half lit a fire under those boys. I would like to think it was the emotions these boys felt behind their defensive tackle being taken out. That could be part of it, at least. All I know is these boys changed the entire game plan second half. There were several other injuries tonight. Thankfully those boys were able to walk off the field. Nevertheless, these boys played with everything they had the remainder of the game. The score went from 14-21 at the half to tied at 35 at the end of the game. Overtime rule: each team gets 4 plays at the 10 yard line. Chantilly scored a beautiful touchdown and the extra point was good. Putting us at 42. The excitement escalates and these boys are fired up. Langley's turn...friends, Chantilly showed off. They held these boys preventing them from getting a touchdown. Final score, and the crowd goes crazy, 42-35. An intense game, to say the least.
Meanwhile, the Hub and Oldest are on their way to the emergency. We're hoping and praying that the injury is minor.
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