The wild weekend that was.......

It was a good and hectic weekend for the sports clown with another three game in three day stretch. No, I am not complaining, as I still can't believe they pay me to watch and talk about football.

Friday night in the rain and wind, it was Essex taking on Burlington with Essex winning this one 20-0. Essex has a solid team with Peter Dietrich and Max Librizzi sharing quarterback duties, and with the Nicasio cousins playing very well on both sides of the ball, it was a fairly convincing win for the Hornets. Burlington is not a bad team by any stretch of the imagination, they have just been killed by injuries on their front line. The big blow for the Seahorses was when quarterback A.J. Dusablon was knocked out of the game in the second quarter. A.J. is one tough kid, and although I did not see the hit as I was following the ball, it had to be nasty for A.J. to go down and to miss the second half. Thankfully for both teams, they were playing on turf as the rain was torrential at times, but the press box wasn't spared. George Commo and I were drenched with the wind whipping the rain into the booth. We had to cover our equipment and our written notes were soaked.

Saturday was Middlebury at Bates with the Panthers moving to 4-1 with a 13-0 shutout of the Bobcats. As always, the Middlebury defense was outstanding, but the offense was sluggish. Middlebury should have been able to put at least 27 points on the board, but they committed dumb penalties at the wrong times. One of those penalties cost the Panthers a touchdown that was called back on a holding call.

Bates is a very nice campus up in Maine. The field was surrounded by a new building to the north end zone, and you could see a good part of the campus from the field. We almost didn't get on the air on time though as we were having issues with the phone line. Andy Walter, the Bates SID, did a great job getting things back up and running so we could go on the air on time.

The drive up was nice, but I learned not to trust Mapquest directions. Mapquest had me going over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house and I got so lost. Finally, after driving around in circles, I found a mail carrier who got me to where I needed to go, although it was a bit late. Not his fault, I blame Mapquest. Needless to say, I asked one of the locals how to get home and it was a nice straight shot. Route four to 108, 108 to Route 2 and on home. Why couldn't it have been that easy on the way there? Oh yeah, I followed Mapquest so never mind.

Sunday, after getting home late and getting up late, I made the easy trip to Barre for the UVM/Ravens semi-pro game. UVM dropped a tough 10-7 decision in a game that was pure defense. These guys were just beating the tar out of each other, and the offenses just could not get going at all. My intern at WSKI, Tanner Acebo, ended up doing PA and did an awesome job. This is one FANTASTIC kid who just wants his shot at doing sports, and is learning that the more you do, and the more opportunities you take advantage of, the more exposure and experience you will get. Great job kid, keep it up.

Here are the totals for this weekend:

Miles driven: 631

Road kill: It was a light week, even on the backroads of Maine with only eight that I could see. But, I did see someone with a dead moose in the back of his pickup on Sunday, but that doesn't count as road kill.

Coffee consumed: Six cups while on the road.

Minutes spent lost in Maine: 45