Fairborn 20 Troy 6

All I can really say about this one is that young teams are going to have games like this sometimes. It's hard to judge something like this from the stands, but it didn't look like the Trojans were playing with a whole lot of fire, whereas it was obvious that Fairborn wanted this one pretty badly. Then again, I came late to the game; it's possible that Troy started off fine and just had their spirit drained by Fairborn's first drive, in which the Skyhawks gouged the defense pretty easily and took the early 7-0 lead. I thought Fairborn had a good offensive gameplan, spreading the Trojans out and working the edges with receiver screens to soften up the middle, taking away the defense's strength of swarming to the ball. The Trojans adjusted and didn't play all that bad defensively, but the offense just had nothing. The P.A. announcer gave them 51 yards at halftime, and while it was a little better in the second half, it wasn't enough to make a difference.

The reason I arrived late is because I had to drive down to Fairborn from Toledo, as I was doing my monthly time in the office on Thursday and today. I probably would have been in my seat for kickoff if I didn't have to wait in line for a ticket - I sat down just 1:20 into the game. While I'm still ecstatic to be living in Troy and that driving long distances and arriving late to games is mostly a thing of a past, I don't mind this every once in a while. I actually kind of like having a drive like that before a game, getting a chance to jam to some tunes (my personal Football playlist on my iPod, of course) and get my game face on. But this was the only time I'll have to do it this season, and I'll be glad to be in the stadium and in my seat well in advance of kickoff next week when the Trojans take on Centerville. That'll be a tall task, and it'll be interesting to see how they respond. Especially coming off a loss like this one.

As for the photo...the lighting conditions at Fairborn precluded me from getting any action shots of the game. Of the peripheral activity, I just thought this was kind of a cool shot. I wanted to get one where the cheerleader was in focus and the background was fuzzed out. Unfortunately, she had finished her cheer and moved on by the time I got my camera settings changed, and I haven't had a chance to give it a run in Photoshop yet.