Piqua 26 Troy 7

High School Football
Home Team: Troy Trojans
Visiting Team: Piqua Indians
Venue: Troy Memorial Stadium
Game Time: 7:00 p.m.
Fellow Attendees: None

Read my thoughts here.

Butler 33 Troy 28

High School Football
Home Team: Troy Trojans
Visiting Team: Butler Aviators
Venue: Troy Memorial Stadium
Game Time: 7:00 p.m.
Fellow Attendees: None

Read my thoughts here.

Sidney 52 Troy 28

High School Football
Home Team: Sidney Yellowjackets
Visiting Team: Troy Trojans
Venue: Sidney Memorial Stadium
Game Time: 7:00 p.m.
Fellow Attendees: None

Read my thoughts here.

Marysville 35 Thomas Worthington 7

High School Football
Home Team: Thomas Worthington Cardinals
Visiting Team: Marysville Monarchs
Venue: Hamilton Field (Worthington, Ohio)
Game Time: 7:30 p.m.*
Fellow Attendees: None

*Kickoff was at 7:30. As I spent the day working in Toledo, I got to the game shortly after 8:00, with the score tied at 0 and about ten minutes left in the 2nd quarter. I then left with about 6:30 left in the game and Marysville leading 21-7, as their coach apparently has no idea how to call an offense with a lead in the fourth quarter and seemed perfectly content to let his quarterback continue to throw incomplete passes until midnight or so. I had seen enough bad football at that point to know that Thomas wasn't going to mount a comeback.

I knew before the season when I looked at Troy's schedule that I probably wasn't going to follow the Trojans to Trotwood for their game tonight. With Brandi at her yoga class until late, though, I didn't feel like skipping a week of high school football entirely. Football-wise, I'd prefer to go see Kilbourne of the two high school teams here in Worthington, but they weren't at home. And of course, it isn't just about seeing good football--if it were, I could have stopped going to Troy games following Ryan Brewer's senior season in 1998 and not missed a whole lot. Thomas is more local to where we live, so after I got back from Toledo, I threw on a sweatshirt and walked over to TWHS to check them out.

The walk was nice. I had seen the stadium from outside, obviously, but this was my first time going into it. It's pretty nice, especially for a team with no football tradition to speak of, at least not recently (I went back to 2000; their best record since then has been 5-5). They also had a pretty decent crowd when I got there--although I soon learned it was their Homecoming, and much of that crowd dispersed following halftime. I think I may have ended up sitting in a reserved section, but no one ordered me out or even looked at me funny, so I could be wrong.

The TWHS mascot is the Cardinal, which suggests to me that their uniforms should be just red, or maybe red and black, but they are in fact red and blue. That's a problematic combination for me, although the shade of blue they use is brighter than that of the Piqua Indians and is instead more Dayton Flyers-ish. Still, no bueno.

And yeah, they're bad at football. That was no surprise, given their 1-5 record coming in, but I was surprised by just how bad they are. For instance, my own beloved Troy Trojans are going through a rough season of their own, but if the two teams played each other, I'd pick Troy and the running clock. And it's not like Marysville was a whole lot better—they also were 1-5 coming in. I saw ten minutes of the first half, and in those ten minutes, the two teams combined for four interceptions.

Anyway. I don't mean to denigrate the kids, so the less said about the actual football, the better. What I will say is that I have a hard time figuring out exactly why Thomas has such a rough time in football. It's a good-sized school (they're in Division I this year after competing in Division II last year), and as I mentioned, it seems like they have a pretty good amount of support. Their coach is only in his second year, so maybe he'll be able to build them up, although the early results aren't encouraging (their one win this year is already better than their winless season last year). Either way, with the right guy in place, I don't see why Thomas couldn't at least be decent at football.

Of course, I'm a fan of the entire high school football experience, and I had heard really good things about Thomas's band, so I was looking forward to seeing them perform. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, it was Homecoming, so all the band did at halftime was stand in place and play a tune over and over as the Homecoming Court was announced. They were performing their competition show in full after the game, and I was interested in sticking around to see it, but it got to a point in the fourth quarter where I just couldn't take any more. The Marysville band sounded really good, though.

So now I've checked out Thomas Worthington and (mostly) satisfied my curiosity about the Friday night experience there; I don't really see myself going back. In the future, on the rare occasions I decide to skip the trip back to the Miami Valley to see the Trojans, I imagine I'll just stick with Kilbourne.

Greenville 27 Troy 14

High School Football
Home Team: Troy Trojans
Visiting Team: Greenville Green Wave
Venue: Troy Memorial Stadium
Game Time: 7:00 p.m.
Fellow Attendees: None

Read my thoughts here.

Xenia 45 Troy 42

High School Football
Home Team: Troy Trojans
Visiting Team: Xenia Buccaneers
Venue: Troy Memorial Stadium
Game Time: 7:00 p.m.
Fellow Attendees: THS Class of 1995

Read my thoughts here.

Wayne 49 Troy 7

High School Football
Home Team: Wayne Warriors
Visiting Team: Troy Trojans
Venue: Heidkamp Stadium (Huber Heights, Ohio)
Game Time: 7:00 p.m.
Fellow Attendees: None

Read my thoughts here.

Miamisburg 43 Troy 15

High School Football
Home Team: Miamisburg Vikings
Visiting Team: Troy Trojans
Venue: Harmon Field (Miamisburg, Ohio)
Game Time: 7:00 p.m.
Fellow Attendees: None

Read my thoughts here.

Cincinnati Northwest 28 Troy 26

High School Football
Home Team: Troy Trojans
Visiting Team: Northwest Knights
Venue: Troy Memorial Stadium
Game Time: 7:00 p.m. (scheduled) / 9:06 p.m. (actual)
Fellow Attendees: None

Read my thoughts here.

Troy 42 CJ 31

High School Football
Home Team: Chaminade-Julienne Eagles
Visiting Team: Troy Trojans
Venue: Heidkamp Stadium (Huber Heights, Ohio)
Game Time: 7:00 p.m.
Fellow Attendees: None

Read my thoughts here.

As usual, my writeup is available on my blog. In addition, here are a number of articles on the game from around the Internet:

Return of the Trojans (David Fong, Troy Daily News)
Troy Stuns CJ (Marc Pendleton, Dayton Daily News)
DDN Photos
Trojans Overcome Adversity, Stun Eagles (Joe Neves, Press Pros Magazine)
Troy Starts Off New Era with Comeback Win (Bryant Billing, Top Billing Sports)

Bowling Green 88 Ball State 75

Men's Basketball
MAC Tournament First Round

Home Team: BGSU Falcons

Visiting Team: Ball State Cardinals

Venue: Stroh Center (Bowling Green, Ohio)

Game Time: 7:00 p.m.

Fellow Attendees: None

Game Story | Box Score

I travel to the Toledo area, of which Bowling Green is a part, once a month for work, and it's kind of amazing how rarely my trips coincide with home games for BG hoops. When it happens, as it did tonight, I'm stoked to be able to make the trip down for the game. The funny thing is, this is the second time I've seen the Falcons play in person this season, and both games have been against Ball State.

Fortunately, both were victories, although they were quite different games. The first was a lower-scoring, defense-oriented affair. Tonight, with rim defender Richaun Holmes out for BG, it was much faster paced. The cool thing to see is that they could play well and come away with victories using both styles. This game got tight for a bit in the second half, but the Falcons were able to keep their poise, weather the storm, and put it away, even without their best player.

They were able to do it because of a big night from the backcourt, with senior guards Anthony Henderson and Jehvon Clarke scoring 20 and 19, respectively. They were both really impressive in a way that we never really saw from them under Louis Orr, which makes me sad that they don't have another year under this coaching staff, so they can continue to grow and get better as players (and the same goes for Richaun, a fellow senior, who was great before this year and has become incredible).

For a tournament game, I have to say the atmosphere at the Stroh left a lot to be desired. It did get a little loud when the game got close, but having some more people in the arena definitely would have been a lot cooler. Just bad timing, I guess--it's spring break for BGSU, and it definitely showed in the student turnout. Other than the pep band, there were only a handful of people in the student section, and there were no cheerleaders (although the dance team was there). I don't know if it's spring break for all/most of the MAC schools, but if so, I wish they would just move the first round of the tournament to Cleveland with the rest of the games. I wouldn't have been able to make it myself, but the crowd overall probably would have been better. These guys deserve to play in front of a good crowd.

At any rate, the Falcons are now moving onto Cleveland for the first time in four years, and hopefully they can make some noise. Personally? They've made major strides this year, and I'm ecstatic about the improvement they've shown; however, I don't see them as MAC Champion material. I'd love to be wrong about that. As it is, they've won 20 games for the first time since 2001-02, which was the end of Coach Dakich's first go-round. Being there to see it was pretty awesome.

Bowling Green 58 Ball State 46

Men's Basketball

Home Team: BGSU Falcons

Visiting Team: Ball State Cardinals

Venue: Stroh Center (Bowling Green, Ohio)

Game Time: 4:00 p.m.

Fellow Attendees: Brandi

Game Story | Box Score

Of all the things I miss about living in Bowling Green - and there are several - going to BG basketball games is at the top of the list. Being a couple of hours away makes it tough to get back as often as I'd like, and it's always a treat when I get back to the ol' alma mater for some hoops. And it seems poised to be even more of a treat now that the Falcons appear poised to play consistently competent basketball.

Prior to this year, the only coach the Falcons had known in their tenure at the Stroh Center was Louis Orr, who never had a great deal of success. Sure, they won their division of the MAC one year (his only winning record in seven seasons), and they played hard, but they played a lot of sloppy, uninspired basketball, and they were never much fun to watch, aside from an occasional player here and there. So there weren't too many people happier than me when Coach Orr was cut loose following the expiration of his contract and Chris Jans was brought in. I wanted to get to a game earlier this season to see the new-look Falcons for myself, and just could never make it work until now, but I had watched them play on TV and the Internet whenever possible and found myself quite impressed with the style of play Coach Jans had brought in. Not to mention the results, of course.

At any rate, I was really excited to finally see this team play at the Stroh. Early on - well, for pretty much the entire first half - it didn't look good. BG wasn't hitting shots, and they looked a little flat and out of sorts. Ball State was really working hard to take away Richaun Holmes in the post, and it was throwing everything else off. Down 27-23 at halftime, I have no doubt that this was a game that last year's time would have lost, and probably by a lot.

This year's time, though, fought through it. The shooting didn't improve much in the second half, but they tightened up on defense and in general and looked a lot better, taking the lead and then pulling away for not just a win, but a comfortable one. And I have to say, I was really impressed with Zack Denny. Being from the Dayton area, I had heard quite a bit about him, and my impression was that he was mostly just a shooter. It turns out he actually has a very solid all-around game. He was everywhere, making good plays and doing all sorts of little things. He ended up with a double-double and led the team in scoring, which, with Richaun usually facing a double-team, was sorely needed.

Now, getting to the game was a little bit of an adventure. Brandi and I left Columbus around 12:30, planning to get into BG well ahead of the game so we'd have time for a late lunch before heading over to the arena. It worked out, but it was a lot closer than it should have been due to some construction on I-75 that had traffic at a complete standstill for several minutes on a few different occasions. But we made it, and the only thing that really suffered was our chance to wander around the Stroh for a few minutes prior to the game. This was Brandi's first visit, and we didn't have any time to explore, but it turned out okay. We had a great time, and got to see a very solid MAC win.