Home Team: Clyde Fliers
Visiting Team: Norwalk Truckers
Venue: Bishop Stadium (Clyde, Ohio)
Game Time: 7:00 p.m.*
Fellow Attendees: None
*Brandi and I came to Clyde to visit her dad. Her family lives about two blocks from the stadium, close enough to vaguely hear the PA announcer inside the house. After we ate, I wandered over to the stadium and found a seat just in time for the third quarter kickoff. The score at the time was 21-17 Clyde.
This is the kind of night that was made for high school football, with a chill in the air but otherwise perfectly pleasant. This was a game with big playoff implications, and with Brandi being a Flier alumna, I feel some small connection to the town/team, so I was glad I got to catch some of it.
I'm not entirely sure how Clyde managed to hang in as well as they did in this game. I can't really pinpoint anything they do well. They can't tackle and take poor routes of pursuit; the offensive line is shaky in the run game; pass protection seemed okay but the quarterback is indecisive; the offense seems overly complicated for a high school team. A lot of that may have just been the matchup—Norwalk only has one loss on the season, and they looked pretty good. And yet the Fliers just seemed to make a play when they needed one.
(Another point seemingly against them: this is the sort of thing that's hard to tell when you just see one half of one game, but the fans in the stands sure don't seem to like the coach. Then again, I don't think I've ever been to a high school game where the fans in the stands did seem to like the coach.)
I started off sitting on the west end, near the student section, then moved to the east (and the older folks) when overtime moved the action down there. Strange as it may seem, the experience by the students was much more low-key. They were content to just stand around and cheer. The adults shake their cowbells and yell at the kids like they're pro players. It's bizarre. The high point came when Norwalk scored their TD in overtime, and a kid from Clyde ended up being injured on the play. A bunch of fans around me started yelling about "lack of class" when Norwalk's players celebrated their touchdown instead of immediately taking a knee for the injured player, and there was some not-so-good-natured yelling back and forth across the field between the two fanbases, all while the kid was still being tended to on the field. It was amazing.
Finally the player was helped off the field and the game resumed, with Norwalk kicking the extra point to go up 41-34. Clyde then took over and made their bumbling way toward the goal line and eventually scored. I was not in favor of the decision to go for 2; I guess here I'm voting with the fans and against the coach. Given the way the game had gone, they didn't seem terribly overmatched, and it didn't seem like the kicker was going to have any issue, so I think in that situation you tie the game and take your chances in a second overtime. But they didn't, and the QB got stuffed on a run toward the endzone, and that was the ballgame.
It would have been awesome if they had managed to pull it out, but this was probably the most fun I've had at a high school game that didn't involve the Troy Trojans, so I'm just glad I was there.
UPDATE 12/7/19: After this game, the Clyde Fliers won their next six games and won the Division IV state championship in Ohio. I find this hilarious.
