I was asked if I drew the short straw as I headed for the press box at the Liberty High School stadium on Friday night.
To be sure, the Manchester Valley-Liberty game, matching up a pair of teams with losing records, was a bit under the radar for county football fans given that previously unbeaten North Carroll was playing two-time reigning county champion Westminster and red-hot South Carroll was playing pesky Francis Scott Key.
But it's sports. And with sports, you never know.
Turns out I was covering the game of the night, the outcome most definitely in doubt into the final minutes while the other three games around Carroll were all blowouts.
More than that, though, I was covering one of the more remarkable individual performances I've seen in more than two decades of doing this.
Mavericks running back Jake Fernandez had a game for the ages, unofficially rushing for 338 yards on a mind-boggling 45 carries. Once the officials stats are tabulated, it might turn out to be the top statistical performance in Carroll history. Liberty's Bill Shaffer set the county record by running for 336 yards in 1995.
To be sure, Fernandez got some great blocking from his offensive line and from fullback Ethan Bare. But he also did a lot on his own, breaking tackles and carrying defenders as his legs seemingly never stopped churning.
"He's a strong kid," said MV coach Tony Shermeyer. "He works in the weight room. He works hard. In the offseason he really pushed himself and he hit the squat rack a lot."
By the end of the game his jersey was the color of mud. By the next morning he likely looked as if he was wearing a purple Ravens jersey given all the bruises he surely picked up along the way.
It sure made life easier for inimitable Liberty public address announcer Pat Strietz, who simply kept calling out the same name time after time after time.
Fernadez logged 13 carries in a row on Manchester Valley's game-clinching drive, capping it with his fourth touchdown. No one else touched it. He accounted for every yard on the 74-yard drive with the exception of one 5-yard penalty on Liberty.
"I've never been that tired before ... it was awesome," said Fernandez, who didn't consider asking for a breather. "No, I knew it was crunch time."
And in crunch time, Shermeyer's play-calling might have been a tad predictable, but it was effective.
"We go off what the defense is giving us, depending on how many people they put in the box," Shermeyer said. "But we were having some success running Jake early and we just stayed with it. Everybody did a great job. Jake's a senior and he knows he only has a few games left of high school football."
He had about three games worth of carries and yards on Friday night.
And, suddenly, Manchester Valley is 4-4 and back in playoff contention. That wasn't necessarily expected at the beginning of the season. The Mavs won eight games and made the playoffs for the first time a year, but they lost do-everything Dom Frank and numerous other key players - including the entire starting offensive line - to graduation.
But after two consecutive wins, with games remaining against Francis Scott Key and bypass rival North Carroll, the Mavs are in a good spot.
"The plan this year as we were going through practice, we thought we were going to have to be an outside team, getting some quickness to the outside," Shermeyer said. "We found that our offensive line guys, they're getting the job done. We started handing off to Jake."
Then, midway through the season, they started airing it out a bit, too. Brody Coleman to Luke Hochheiser has become a lethal combination.
"We found some nice balance between the pass and the run," said Shermeyer. "If we can limit our stupid mistakes we can have some success."
Added Fernandez: "We're excited for the last two weeks."
They should be.
It looked like a rebuilding year for the Mavs. But it's sports. And with sports you never know.
