The Seasons Are Overlapping In Warsaw
November 2, 2016 at 4:17 p.m.
By Roger Grossman-
Trick-or-treating is a lot of fun and my kids really enjoyed it Monday night.
But Oct 31 is a very bittersweet day on the calendar for me. It’s the day that, in most years, I put broadcasting football officially to bed and start thinking about and working toward the girls basketball season and then the boys season soon after.
This season in Tiger Town is a little different.
With the moving of the 6A bye week to the first week of the playoffs and a playoff victory in the semifinals over Carroll last week have the Warsaw football team playing in November for just the fourth time ever.
With the addition of two regular season games to the girls basketball schedule, and the corresponding move of stretching the start of the season to this first week of Nov., the Lady Tigers will have their earliest starting date when they open against Luers in the Tiger Den Saturday night.
That means, for the first time that I have found, the Warsaw football and girls basketball teams will have games on the same weekend.
Football coach Phil Jensen came to Warsaw to make Friday nights in the fall matter, and he’s done that. The Tigers have won conference championships and played in some memorable games during his 17 years here. But he has one goal, one dream that remains unfulfilled – to win a sectional championship.
Friday will be the program’s fourth foray into a sectional championship game. Only once have they been in a meaningful fourth quarter in the previous three games, and that was against Snider in 2009 when the officials mistakenly picked up their flag for the Panther quarterback throwing a pass beyond the line of scrimmage on 3rd-and long that led to a score that clinched the game.
Is this the moment Tiger football fans have been waiting for? Does this team have what it takes?
The girls basketball team has spent the last eight months trying to wash the taste of an 0-9 start last season out of their mouths, and this particular edition has an unusual opportunity.
It’s rare that a high school team’s roster remains completely intact from one year to the next, so this Lady Tiger team has the chance to redeem itself. Everyone is back, and they all remember. This group of seniors, which came into varsity basketball with such promise, now finds itself between the rock of overcoming last season and the hard place of the realization that there won’t be another chance after this one.
One campus, two venues, and two teams and their seasons literally intersecting on the first weekend in Nov.
I will be blessed to have the best seat in the house for both.
Trick-or-treating is a lot of fun and my kids really enjoyed it Monday night.
But Oct 31 is a very bittersweet day on the calendar for me. It’s the day that, in most years, I put broadcasting football officially to bed and start thinking about and working toward the girls basketball season and then the boys season soon after.
This season in Tiger Town is a little different.
With the moving of the 6A bye week to the first week of the playoffs and a playoff victory in the semifinals over Carroll last week have the Warsaw football team playing in November for just the fourth time ever.
With the addition of two regular season games to the girls basketball schedule, and the corresponding move of stretching the start of the season to this first week of Nov., the Lady Tigers will have their earliest starting date when they open against Luers in the Tiger Den Saturday night.
That means, for the first time that I have found, the Warsaw football and girls basketball teams will have games on the same weekend.
Football coach Phil Jensen came to Warsaw to make Friday nights in the fall matter, and he’s done that. The Tigers have won conference championships and played in some memorable games during his 17 years here. But he has one goal, one dream that remains unfulfilled – to win a sectional championship.
Friday will be the program’s fourth foray into a sectional championship game. Only once have they been in a meaningful fourth quarter in the previous three games, and that was against Snider in 2009 when the officials mistakenly picked up their flag for the Panther quarterback throwing a pass beyond the line of scrimmage on 3rd-and long that led to a score that clinched the game.
Is this the moment Tiger football fans have been waiting for? Does this team have what it takes?
The girls basketball team has spent the last eight months trying to wash the taste of an 0-9 start last season out of their mouths, and this particular edition has an unusual opportunity.
It’s rare that a high school team’s roster remains completely intact from one year to the next, so this Lady Tiger team has the chance to redeem itself. Everyone is back, and they all remember. This group of seniors, which came into varsity basketball with such promise, now finds itself between the rock of overcoming last season and the hard place of the realization that there won’t be another chance after this one.
One campus, two venues, and two teams and their seasons literally intersecting on the first weekend in Nov.
I will be blessed to have the best seat in the house for both.
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