Last week was one busy week for us trying to cover all the playoff action that included one of our teams. Soccer, volleyball, field hockey, football and cross country were all part of regional and state playoff activity and we had a our share of representation.
Now, there's no way I could get to all the games that fell under my watch, if only because some of them were played at the same time, but I saw plenty of quality action.
The two games that stick out above the others were both boys soccer games contested on Saturday. One at Bel Air High School at noon and the other at North County High School in Glen Burnie at 7:30 p.m.
At Bel Air, I got to witness the Fallston Cougars and the Patuxent Panthers in a classic Class 2A state semifinal. A classic case of why you play the game.
Coming in, the game looked like a mismatch with Patuxent posting a sub-.500 record. That, along with Fallston's dominant style of play, made it seem even more like a mismatch.
Then, just like that, Patuxent goes ahead on a hard shot that I believe caught the Fallston goalie by surprise. The shot was at, or slightly above head high, but the bounce off Robbie Kansler's hands made it seem like he just wasn't ready. I'm not sure anyone on the field was ready, to be honest. It was a blast.
The Cougars, meanwhile, continued with the game plan; attacking constantly. Unfortunately, the consistent pounding resulted in nothing to show on the scoreboard.
I expected Patuxent to come out in the second half and pack it in, trying to make the one-goal lead stand up. They sort of did that, but when they scored again less than nine minutes into the second half, it looked a little bleak for the Cougars.
For Fallston fans, they had seen this act before and it was just a few days earlier. So, was it really possible for Fallston to pull out another win in heart-wrenching fashion? It was.
Tyler Andrus got the Cougars on the scoreboard with 16:58 left and when Aidan O'Donnell pulled the Cougars even at the 9:53 mark, we all should have see it coming.
Over that last nine minutes the Cougars' style of play was relentless, but like much of the game, nothing came of it.
In OT though, the Cougars prevailed on Andrus' header, giving the Cougars its second 3-2 overtime win in five days.
At North County, the results weren't so good, as Havre de Grace was nipped 2-1 by Mountain Ridge in a physical 1A semifinal, that ultimately came down to a penalty kick awarded with just 2:25 to play.
I've seen more physical games in my time on the sidelines, but I don't believe I saw so many players on the ground throughout the game. Every time there was a '50-50' ball, a player on one team or the other was on the ground.
There were the few fouls that bordered on flagrant and they brought out the referee's yellow card. Of course, the reaction of the crowd from both sides didn't like it when the call went against them.
As for the call that created the game-winning penalty shot, it didn't look so bad from the pressbox. In fact, the assigned referee to run the clock, said aloud the words, "That's a dive," right before the referee blew his whistle and stopped play. I believe he, like the rest of us, didn't want to see this game determined by a single penalty kick.
It was.