2018 Week 7 (Ohio)

Glenville v. John Adams, John Adams Stadium, Cleveland, Ohio

2018 Week 7 (Ohio)

For a weekend with almost all Ohio games, it started off in Pennsylvania. In Clarion County, the annual Autumn Leaf Festival always alters the schedule of at least one county school. With most of the festivities on the weekend, many schools are off. This moves a lot of the games to Thursday night.

For 2018, it was only one school that elected to play on Thursday. Keystone, in the town of Knox just west of county-seat Clarion, was hosting Union/ACV. Union and Allegheny-Clarion Valley formed a co-op a few years ago. The Falcon Knights, as they’re called, split time between both schools. Hosting games in Rimersburg and Foxburg.
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2018 Week 6 (West Virginia & Pennsylvania)

2018 Week 6 (West Virginia & Pennsylvania)

Week 6 was a lot of fun, but a lot of driving and a lot of games. With Carrick cancelling the rest of their season due to low numbers, I was on the hunt for another Thursday game. Which led me to search the surrounding states for games. Parma had a game, and elsewhere in Ohio. And Buffalo had two games. But, as I looked around, I found one in West Virginia. With a 1pm kickoff. Continue reading “2018 Week 6 (West Virginia & Pennsylvania)”

2018 Week 5 (Pennsylvania & New York)

2018 Week 5 (Pennsylvania & New York)

Week 5 went nothing like I had originally planned. Some of that can be blamed on the weather, the matchups, and just my mood in general.

With no real intriguing Thursday games aside from Parma or Pittsburgh, my wife and I opted to head to Cleveland for the Browns game. It’d been over two years since my last Browns game. Having a 2 year old daughter made the choice easy to give up my season seats. But, seeing that tickets were fairly cheap on Ticketmaster meant the idea of heading to Cleveland worthwhile. Continue reading “2018 Week 5 (Pennsylvania & New York)”

2018 Week 2 (Pennsylvania)

2018 Week 2 (Pennsylvania)

Week 2 was definitely a road trip. Thursday night included a nearly three hour jaunt to southeastern Ohio and the Noble County Fair. The Caldwell Redskins play full-time at the Noble County Fairgrounds. However, during the annual fair, if they have a home game that weekend, it’s played on Thursday night and becomes a marquee event of the fair.

Similar to how Clarion County (PA) handles the Autumn Leaf Festival, however in order to attend the game you must pay to enter the fair. Admission to the stadium itself is then free. This $9 charge may seem a bit much for a high school game, but you do have an entire fair to check out before or after the game.

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2017 Week 12 (South Dakota)

Week 12 (South Dakota)

My first time seeing games in South Dakota was the seven state championship games. All seven were held over three days at the DakotaDome in Vermillion. In the far southeastern corner of the state. Being the only dome available, in early November, this location made a lot of sense.

Vermillion is a small college town. It’s about an hour from the major city of South Dakota, Sioux Falls, and also about 45 minutes or so away from Sioux City. It’s located just a few miles north of Nebraska and the Missouri River.

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2017 Week 7 (New York)

Week 7 (New York)

Just a quick trip this past week to New York on Thursday night. This was my second all-time trip to New York for a single game. And I was a little leery. Last time I drove to the Buffalo area for a Thursday game, I found out that earlier that day the game was rescheduled for another venue on the following Saturday.

Checking with Twitter though, it appeared the game between Lake Shore and West Seneca West would still be a go for Thursday. Without any particularly interesting game elsewhere in northeast Ohio or western Pennsylvania, I took the two and a half hour trip north.

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2017 Week 4 (Alabama)

2017 Week 4 (Alabama)

Doing these slightly out of order now. Week Four’s big game was in the town of Guntersville, Alabama. The homestanding Guntersville Wildcats hosted the Etowah Blue Devils at Chorba-Lee Stadium.

With an entire state to choose from, picking a good game for Friday night was a bit difficult. While also trying to make it to a Saturday night game in Kentucky, the northeast corner of the state was the best option. Albertville was my original thought, but the best hotel deal was a few miles northwest in Guntersville.

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