Commentary: McLean vs Happy

Travelling North was in the cards on a cloudy Friday night. The matchup between Division I – District 1 McLean and Happy for the District Championship was too good to pass up. McLean beat a good White Deer team to secure a spot in the playoffs. Only Happy stood in the way of being number one in the district.
 
I arrived early to a balmy 52 degrees with winds whipping out of the southwest at about 20mph. The teams hadn’t quite made it to the field so I took up residence on the side of the concession stand to get out of the wind. McLean emerged first. Happy followed close behind.
 
Because I didn’t get a chance to speak with Coach Linman from McLean last week, I zeroed in on him as he directed warm-up. I finally caught up with him. Nice guy. He told me his team was ready, and they were glad to be there and playing for the district championship. I watched him sprint to catch up with the Tigers heading to the locker room.
 
Next came Coach Keith from Happy. It is always a pleasure to talk with him. He’s a very personable guy and already had his game face firmly in place. The Cowboys were ready to play!
 
This game was a good one. As we see sometimes in Sixman, the score didn’t tell the entire story. Both teams fought hard. I saw the competitiveness of several of the McLean Tigers. They wanted the win badly. The Cowboys were just too much.
 
I caught a rare photo this game. I actually photographed a Tiger who looked up and saw me as he was moving at a high rate of speed in my direction. I normally sidestep players whose momentum takes them out of bounds. I couldn’t quite seem to get out of the way three different times during this game. I was thankful that the players saw me at the last second and dodged me. Very thankful.
 
This week I’m bringing back the Quote of the Night. I heard this from the Happy announcer many times, “Everybody needs to go on down to the WORLD FAMOUS Happy concession stand!” Love it!
 
Observations from my visit to Happy:

• The World Famous concession stand IS pretty great. I was able to snag a ½ hot chocolate and ½ coffee and they even put marshmallows in it. Pretty good stuff!
• The McLean horn is still loud. I think they may have ramped up the decibels on that thing since the week before!
• The Happy horn is on what looks like a black chariot. Pretty cool platform for a school horn!
• Ms. Rachel (didn’t get her last name) who sang the Star Spangled Banner did a spectacular job!
• The lines on the Happy field are black. I took notice because most are painted white.
• McLean had more cheerleaders this week! I believe two of them were out the week before running in the State Cross Country meet. Very cool!

 
Both Happy and McLean are now in the playoffs! Happy will play Anton and McLean will face Nazareth. Both games are Friday. Good luck to both!
 
Try to attend a playoff game! You’ll be glad you did! And while you’re out there, don’t forget to Go Forward and Do GOOD!