Imagine if you will, two teams come into a friday night game, one unbeaten, let's call them THE INVINCIBLE. While the other team or let's call them BEATABLE's coach ANDREW says "Things are never as bad as they look or as good as they look."
Andrew was referring to his last week's game against TRAGEDY, when BEATABLE had six turnovers in a 21-14 loss. But he just as easily could have been talking about the Titans' first quarter against THE INVINCIBLE.
Things certainly were going bad. But not as bad as they looked.
Regrouping nicely, BEATABLE dominated the rest of the game and rallied for a 16-16 tie on fullback Steve Addleton's six-yard touchdown burst and tailback Robert Cunningham's two-yard conversion run with 5:51 left to play.
"After the third fumble, I started to say, 'Oh no,' " Andrew said. "But I still felt we showed signs of moving the ball. We just had to get the opportunity."
BEATABLE outgained an injury-riddled THE INVINCIBLE team in total yards, 361-183, and had more first downs, 15-9. Cunningham led all rushers with 253 yards on 19 carries, but his fumble that rolled out the back of the INVINCIBLE end zone late in the third quarter for a touchback negated an apparent scoring run and might have cost the BEATABLE a victory.
"That was a killer," Andrew said.
BEATABLE finished with five turnovers, giving the team an atrocious total of 11 in its last two games.
Considering his team was outplayed so badly after the first quarter, INVINCIBLE Coach Steve Coffee considered himself fortunate to get out of BEATABLE with a tie.
"I feel lucky, to tell you the truth," he said. "We had some major (defensive) breakdowns and they exploited them. BEATABLE played extremely well. Defensively they shut us down."
INVINCIBLE, ranked No. 2 in the division II poll, is 4-0-1 overall and 1-0-1 in the competitive Ray League, while BEATABLE, ranked No. 10, is 3-1-1 and 0-1-1.
Greg Schilling made his first start at quarterback for BEATABLE in place of injured Bill DeMartin, who sprained an ankle in practice Tuesday, and did a nice job of running the option. He scored the BEATABLE first eight points on a five-yard run and two-point conversion run early in the third quarter.
Just remember like always, Appearances can be deceiving.