EXCUSE ME WHILE I VENT. D A N G Dang

I am nearly 60 so one might contribute it to my age. I always played on Defense so perhaps that helps explain it as well. We all have our own personal taste for the game. I detest super high scoring games.

Just in this past week (WEEK FOUR) we had the following scores in Six-Man.
124-108 Fort Davis over Midland Trinity
90-71 Austin Hill Country over Kerrville Our Lady of the Hills
96-84 May over Lometa
90-70 Throckmorton over Dallas Covenant

It has been going on for a while.

WEEK THREE we saw this score.
EP Jesus Chapel 96 EP Immanuel Christian 70

WEEK TWO we had this one.
Orange Community Christian 80 Houston Texas Christian 71

WEEK ONE
Crowell 83 Spur 82
122-120 San Antonio The Winston over San Antonio Town East

WEEK ZERO
San Antonio Castle Hills 109 San Antonio The Winston 105


Ever since the earth was cooling down or as far back in time when I first saw a football game, cheerleaders and fans alike would chant the familiar yell:
DEFENSE! DEFENSE! DEFENSE! Well, times have changed.
There is a new yell in town. It goes like this.
D A N G DANG!
We got to score again!
D A N G DANG!
We got to score again!
D A N G DANG!
We got to score AGAIN!

Cheerleading etiquette says this particular cheer cannot or should not be used until both teams have given up 70 points!

Surely I am not the only person that feels this way! I know my good friend Jess Roberts feels this way. He is the head coach at Fort Davis. He was just involved in such a crazy game. This is what he has to say about the subject. “It was not my intention to go for a scoring record. Every time I see a game that the scores is in the hundred I always think holy crap! Where’s the defense?” He goes on to say “I hope God doesn’t strike me down but what’s wrong with out- scoring them? I know that is going to come back to bite me in the long run. We have got to do better on defense.”

Jess, my old friend, you better “git’ er done” soon as Throckmorton is coming to town in a couple of weeks and they just hung 90 on the #2 ranked TAPPS Dallas Covenant Eagles. I suppose the good news is they gave up 70!

TOP TEN’s WEEK FIVE
D1
1. Throckmorton
2. Ira
3. Rankin
4. Borden County
5. Water Valley
6. Valley
7. Sands
8. Crowell
9. Aquilla
10. Abbott

D2
1. Richland Springs
2. Motley County
3. Jonesboro
4. Newcastle
5. Sterling City
6. Calvert
7. Miami
8. Strawn
9. Lefors
10. Amherst


WEEK FIVE GAMES OF INTEREST
Ira @ Rankin
Garden City @ Ropes
Motley County @ Crowell
Lueders-Avoca @ Hermleigh
Bloomberg @ Karnack
Anton @ Lefors

Last week’s games of interest results.

Strawn @ Gordon Gordon 57 Strawn 50
Spur # Knox City Spur won 54-8
Follett @ Motley County Motley County won 41-38
Lazbuddie @ New Home New Home won 62-44
Dallas Covenant @ Throckmorton Throckmorton won 90 to 70
Sands @ Water Valley Water Valley won 58-48
Walnut Springs @ Iredell Walnut Springs won 52-22

It has been a long season and District has not started yet. We are however getting closer. Hang in there and stay healthy if you are and get healthy if you aren’t.

GOOD FOOTBALL TO YOU.

Mike Reed: 100 Career Wins!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You may have heard this before. I have a saying about Six-Man, "you never know how good a Six-Man game will be until you have seen the game". I made the trek from Abilene to Throckmorton to watch the #1 D1 UIL team in the land take on a highly ranked TAPPS D1 Dallas Covenant. I saw a great game.

Knowing this had the makings of a "good game" because the teams involved were both undefeated and highly ranked made it a easy target for me to desire watching. The added attraction was my friend Coach Mike Reed of Throckmorton was going for his 100th win in his 10th year of coaching. Throckmorton got the win by the score of 90-70 and Coach Reed has the milestone 100th victory! Dallas Covenant proved to be a strong team for those who may have doubted if they could hang with Throckmorton.

A win is a win and you take them no matter what they look like, a thing of beauty or one that is ugly as sin. This Throckmorton victory was somewhere in between. It appeared a time or two in the 3rd Quarter of play that Throckmorton was dominating but the Knights never gave up!

Dallas Covenant received the opening kickoff and came out passing the ball. Unfortunately, the Knights fumbled on their third offensive play and to make matters worse for them, the Greyhounds recovered the ball near midfield.

Seven plays later, Throckmorton scored on a three yard run and made the PAT. 8-0 with 6:37 left in the 1st Quarter. Dallas Covenant would again come out passing. First down was an incompletion but on second down the Knights moved from their 23 yard line to the Greyhound 39. The next play Dallas Covenant went the distance on a beautiful pass play. The PAT was no good and at the 5:57 mark of the 1st Quarter Throckmorton led 8-6.

After the ensuing kickoff, Throckmorton had the ball on their 34 yard line. The Greyhounds picked up 7 yards on first down but after three straight incompletions they turned the ball over on downs. Dallas Covenant took over on their own 39. Seven plays later the Knights score on a 9 yard run and with the PAT good, lead 14-8 with 3:35 left in the 1st Quarter. Throckmorton came right back on a 4 play drive covering 60 yards to knot the score at 14-14. The PAT was wide left.

Throckmorton would out score Dallas Covenant 48 to 16 in the 2nd Quarter to take a halftime lead of 62-30 and seemed to be in control of the game. More of the same in the third with Throckmorton leading 82 to 46 at the end of three and threaten to end the game on the mercy rule more than once during the 3rd.

Dallas Covenant is worthy of their TAPPS ranking and they showed it in the 4th out scoring Throckmorton 20 to 8 to make the final 90 t0 70.

Throckmorton is fortunate to have Mike Reed as their Head Coach and they had a wonderful celebration after the game to honor Reed for his 100th career victory. Administrators, fans and players as well as good people from Rule showed their appreciation to Coach Reed. Many of his former players showed up for the special occasion as well as Reed's former Head Coach and mentor, Hall of Fame member Coach Nelson Campbell.

LOOKING AHEAD WEEK FOUR

Lets get to it shall we?

Here are the WEEK FOUR Top Tens for D1 and D2 Texas Six-Man Football from sixmancentral.

D1
1. Throckmorton
2. Ira
3. Sands
4. Rankin
5. Borden County
6. Valley
7. Water Valley
8. Aquillal
9. Crowell
10.Petersburg


D2
1. Richland Springs
2. Motley County
3. Jonesboro
4. Strawn
5. Newcastle
6. Calvert
7. Sterling City
8. Miami
9. Gustine
10.Groom

There are always a few games that intrigue me and WEEK FOUR is no different.

Strawn at Gordon
If you are a fan of the game, you will not question the intrigue here.

Spur at Knox City
Knox City needs to "right the ship". This isn't an easy team to do it against. Spur was humbled by Rankin but they aren't afraid of the Greyhounds.

Follett at Motley County
Motley County put D2 on notice when they snapped Garden City's 29 game winning streak in Hico during WEEK ZERO. Could this be an exclamation point?

Lazbuddie at New Home
Speaking of streaks, Lazbuddie just snapped one themselves! Can they win two in a row?

Dallas Covenant at Throckmorton
Man look out! A highly ranked "private" comes to challenge the #1 in the world Throckmorton Greyhounds. What could be better? How about Mike Reed going for his 100th win as a Head Coach? I will be in Throckmorton!!!!!

Sands at Water Valley
This is the place to be but I can only be at one place any given time and as I already stated, I will be in Throckmorton.

Walnut Springs at Iredell
What we have here is a WS team coming off a loss going against the Iredell boys and of course the famous Iredell cheer leaders will be there.

I would not think of forcing you to attend one of these games but I certainly do expect you to go see a Six-Man game somewhere.

LOOKING BACK TO WEEK THREE

What Happened..........

Those that read my last post know I designated a few games as must see TV. Wait a minute, that was not it. There were a few games that I said I was particularly interested in. Here is the break down on those games.

Borden County defeated Meadow 76 to 50.
It was a good game between teams that sixmancentral had ranked #7 and #8 in the state. That being the case, it should have been a good game. I picked Borden County to win by 8.

Calvert defeated Penelope 62-14.
I thought Calvert could possibly win this game.

Valley defeated Crowell 54-42.
My main interest here was to see how good Crowell really is knowing that Valley was deserving of the #6 ranking bestowed on them by sixmancentral. Crowell is now 3-1 and I would recognize as a solid playoff team.

Gordon defeated Bryson 40-28.
This was a battle of two undefeated teams both being 3-0. Gordon has shown some improvement from last year although I have not seen them this season. I will see them on the 30th of September at Highland when I work the booth with my good friend Shanon Hunt. It would appear even though Bryson lost their first game here they are still on their way to a second straight district crown.

Waco Live Oak defeated Gustine 46-0.
Gustine was previously undefeated this season and ranked #7 in D2 by sixmancentral. Well, the wheels came off.

Newcastle defeated Knox City 60-30.
Newcastle has been an up and coming team in D2. Knox City on the other hand had been dropping in the rankings in D1 for a couple of weeks. The Greyhounds need to come around soon. Newcastle is gaining strength every week and will push Strawn hard for the crown in their district.

Finally, Sands defeated Sterling City 91-47.
D2 Sterling City suffered their second straight defeat. Sands is a D1 dark horse so to speak even though sixmancentral has them ranked 4th in the state. Be on your toes for these guys!

What I Saw...........

Super dog deal! It was a two for one special Friday in Gail, Texas. Rankin and Spur were scheduled to play on Borden County's field
On Saturday but changed the date to 5:30 Friday. Rankin who sixmancentral has ranked #3 beat a top twenty team in the Spur Bulldogs.
The score was 54-8. It was a whipping, no hiding that. Spur was out matched in this game but to make matters worse there were several self inflicted wounds as well as a punishing opponent. Rankin is a large and physical team. Stated another way, Rankin will line up and run over you. Can I say here and now the #9 Rankin Red Devil is a BEAST. His number could just as well be 666. One other thing, don't defense them by bringing everyone to stop the run because they will break your heart with their passing game.

Rankin received the opening kickoff. They went on an eleven play drive that covered 47 yards to score. The PAT was not good and the score was 6-0 with 6:13 left in the 1st quarter. The ensuing kickoff to Spur went deep however #7 picked it up and went 70 yards for the TD. Spur converted their PAT and led 8-6. With :54 seconds left in the 1st quarter, Rankin regained the lead 14-8 and that remained the score as the horn sounded the end of the quarter. Rankin ran 29 offensive plays to 5 for Spur in quarter one. What was typical of this game, Rankin
ground out another drive to lead 22-8 at the half. Three more scores in the 3rd quarter, the last with 9 seconds left salted away the game for Rankin. 54-8.

Borden County outlasted Meadow in the second game of the night by a score of 76-50. Borden County has a great team and this is no excuse for Meadow but they simply ran out of gas. The game started with Meadow kicking to Borden County. The Coyotes ran three plays for short yardage and were forced to punt their first possession. Meadow took over on their own 34 yard line. With 4:20 left in the 1st quarter the Broncos scored and converted to lead 8-0. The game seemed a little slow at that point. BAM!!! Lightning struck! Not from the sky but in the form of back to back 76 yards kickoff returns for touchdowns. The game was tied 14-14 at the start of the second quarter. More of the same and at the half the score was tied 28-28. As the game advanced in the second half, Borden County got stronger and Meadow became gassed. Final: Borden County 76 Meadow 50.

WHAT I DIDN'T SEE THAT I WISHED I HAD.........

The Lazbuddie LONGHORNS came from behind in their homecoming game scoring on the final play with no time showing to defeat Wellman-Union 26-20. Pretty exciting stuff. My idol, the latePaul Harvey used to say " And now, for the rest of the story" . The Lazbuddie win was just a win, NO SIR! The win snapped a 14 game losing streak. I am told that quite a celebration erupted by the homecoming crowd. I say CONGRATULATIONS to Cooach JK Hester his tem and their fans. Hip hip hooray!

Next post I will extoll the games I find intriguing. This one was a little long, sorry. Thanks for the read.

WEEK THREE Rolling Around

You know the drill by now. Please go and support your favorite Six-Man team this week home or on the road. Let the players know how much you appreciate the hard work they are putting in. Visit the concession stand too and help support whatever group is working the stand.

To the fan in general, like myself, that is running unattached so to speak, there are a few games that generate more than just a wait and see attitude.

These are the games I am particularly interested in the outcome.

Meadow (3-0) vs. Borden County (2-1) at Borden County
Calvert (0-2) vs. Penelope (2-1) at Calvert
Crowell (3-0) vs. Valley (2-1) at Valley
Gordon (3-0) vs. Bryson (3-0) at Bryson
Gustine (3-0) vs. Waco Live Oak (3-0) at Gustine
Newcastle (2-1) vs. Knox City (1-2) at Newcastle
Sterling City (2-1) vs. Sands (3-0)

I have been known to make mistakes of EPLER proportions in my time so before you plan on attending these games you better check dates, places, and times.

Enjoy whatever game you choose to attend. If for any reason you can't make a game this week there are some great ones coming up in the next few weeks.

Long Tough WEEKEND

I love football. Really, I do. It is hard for me to get enough football. It is a known fact that I see as much Six-Man as I can. I have done that for several years now. Sometimes I have to call an audible because other issues come up that require me to divert from my love of Six-Man. This weekend was such a case.

I surveyed the overall schedule for games that I believed would be good games to see. I narrowed it down to two games. Decision time. Sterling City and Water Valley would hook up in Water Valley and Ira and Ropes would be playing in Ira. Abilene to Ira is roughly 85 miles. Water Valley is a little over a hundred miles. The kicker was I have a grandson who plays in a youth football league in the San Antonio area. It was his first game of the season so I told my wife this would be as good a time as any to go watch him.

Knowing we would need to be on the road Saturday morning no later than 6:00 AM to make Nathan's game and thinking about the drive home on Friday night after the game in Ira or Water Valley, old age whispered in my ear that I might ought to opt for a game in Abilene instead. It so happened that Abilene Christian High School had a home game scheduled. Elmer Gray stadium is about a five minute drive from my house. They were playing Rockwall Christian. I figured ACHS would win by 25 or so but what the heck. Five minute drive back to my house seemed to be just what was needed for my tired and deteriorating body.

ACHS won the game 54-6. The panthers are impressive. The running game needs a little work I think but the passing game looks close to perfection. I will issue a PANTHER WARNING at this time. If ACHS appears on your schedule and you don't have a pass defense, you might want to consider taking a sick day. If you are not sick you will be when your game with them is over. Truly, they are scary good.

I did make the trip to San Antonio to watch the grandson. His team got drilled. Four touchdowns to none. He got to play a little more than half the game as a defensive lineman. The other team had quite a few larger kids and they double teamed Nathan all the time. He lived to fight another day. I was proud he gave it all he had. Coming home on Sunday, my son in the Waco area sent me a text with disturbing news. His four year old son, my number two grandson, has signed up to participate in futbol! Translated, that means he will be playing soccer. None of my three children ever took up such to which I can say I am proud. Number two grandson is the first of my five grandchildren to do so. It is indeed a sad day. His first day to practice is Thursday. Hope with me that the boy comes to his senses and decides his PePaw is right that soccer is a dumb game.

That is enough personal trauma. It is time to release the sixmancentral rankings for WEEK THREE.

D1
1. Throckmorton
2. Ira
3. Rankin
4. Sands
5. Aquilla
6. Valley
7. Borden County
8. Meadow
9. Aspermont
10. Water Valley

D2
1. Richland Springs
2. Motley County
3. Jonesboro
4. Sterling City
5. Miami
6. Strawn
7. Gustine
8. Milford
9. Calvert
10.Newcastle

EPLER the name is EPLER not EPHLER.

The inventor of THE game is EPLER. STEPHEN EDWARD EPLER.
Heath A Gibson called it to my attention that I spelled Mr. Epler's name wrong!
I have read this a million times and never caught my mistake. How lame is that?
I make an honest effort to bring honor to a gentleman that much honor is due and I can't spell his name correctly. I beg the forgiveness of all ESPECIALLY Mr. Epler's family.

Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler Epler

S.E.E. SIX-MAN NEWS
by Don Hardin
Abilene, Texas
donhardin1@gmail.com