Varsity Kansas - The Blog

by joanna

Whew. I’m not even sure what I’m going to write here. I just had 20 minutes to write my game story on the 29-28 victory by the West over the East. I’m still a little shaky with the adrenaline rush.

But here you go:

What an unbelievable game. Gary Guzman, the Southeast coach who went for two against Heights last season and failed, decided to go for two tonight. The Shrine Bowl doesn’t have overtimes and only one game has ever finished in a tie. All the West assistants wanted to go for two, but Guzman is admittedly conservative.

He wasn’t tonight. He went for two and Cole Cherryholmes hit Mykael Thompson in the right corner of the end zone. What a finish.

The West hadn’t been playing very well in the fourth quarter. After taking a 21-14 lead at the end of the third quarter when Cherryholmes hit Thompson for a 31-yard pass on a flea-flicker, the West watched the East score two unanswered in the fourth quarter — both after West turnovers.

The East had the West stopped in the final two minutes, too, but a roughing-the-passer penalty on the East (I didn’t see it because I was on the field, but everyone in the press box said it was pretty clear) gave the West new life. Cherryholmes took advantage, too, driving and hitting Ethan Ungles to get the West within one with 20 seconds to go.

What a game. Just unbelievable. As Cherryholmes said “undescribable.”

It was a bit of a cluster after the game. All the players milled around on the field with their families, taking pictures. All the media was desperately trying to get interviews so they could desperately run back up to the press box (I ran the stadium stairs and the three flights up to the press box) and desperately write their stories and try to make deadline.

I was trying so hard to find Cherryholmes, but he’s 5-10 and I couldn’t find him anywhere. Which is when I enlisted Randy Dreiling. Now I’m definitely a fan, always have been. Well, almost always have been. And he walked around bellowing Cherryholmes. I love the guy. I really do. We finally found Cherryholmes, I got what I wanted and I bolted.

I passed Brett Steven and felt kind of bad. I didn’t need to talk to him, although he’d been my plan for the story. A feature on the kid who gives up football to walk-on to play basketball at WSU and he has an MVP type of game.

All right, I’m heading out. I’ve got a roomful of family — all should be sleeping — but I’m sure there’s some sort of fast food calling me. Hey! I got my exercise in. Don’t I deserve it?

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 26th, 2008 at 11:29 p.m. and is filed under Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.