IHSAA Football Week 4

Unlike last Friday, tonight was a perfect night (though a touch warm) for an epic match-up between Mississippi Valley Conference juggernauts.

Cedar Rapids Xavier, the Catholic school from The City of Five Smells, took their #5 ranking to Bates Fields to take on #4 ranked City High. (I think those were the rankings.) My dad and I had been planning to attend the game all week, and I ended up meeting him there after helping Mervgotti rearrange his living room for tomorrow night’s Iowa-Arizona game.

The Little Hawks stormed out to a 9-0 lead in the first quarter (CHS missed an extra point), and it looked like another City High blowout. But the tide turned. The Saints defense had City’s running game figured out, and their offense methodically marched down the field, eating up clock. Xavier missed and then made a field goal, and went into halftime down 9-3. All the momentum was in their favor after City High kicked off to open the second half.

After the Little Hawks stuffed Xavier’s first possession of the third quarter, City High coughed up the ball inside their own 30. The Saints pounced, scoring on a 16-yard touchdown pass caught in the very back of the end zone underneath the goal posts. The following Little Hawk offensive series was an anemic and deflated three and out. After taking the punt, Xavier marched down the field and scored to take a 17-9 lead.

The home crowd was deflated. I was sitting with my dad at the time and we were on the edge of the student section. I will say, as a CHS student section alum, the students stayed interested and engaged. They do a lot more section wide cheers and chants than I remember doing in high school. All I remember chanting was “Bulllll-shit. Bulllll-shit. Bulllll-shit.” (At one point tonight, dad told me to “watch my language” after I wondered during a referee conference, “What the FUCK is going on?”) I hardly ever paid attention, but I remember I could predict interceptions, and I did so tonight.

After finding their running game again, and scoring a touchdown and two-point conversion to tie the game, the Little Hawk defense snatched an interception. I knew it was coming. The wide receiver was double covered and the pass was underthrown. Pick. I stood before anyone else, my arms in the air, in anticipation. City High marched down the field to score a TD. The kicker missed the extra point and the score was 23-17.

One of the sickening aspects of football, at any level, is the script becomes sickeningly predictable. At that point of the game, after CHS’ extra point sailed wide right, dad turned to me and said, “They’ll beat us by one.”

Sure enough, the Saints slowly and methodically crawled down the field to score a TD after eating up eight and a half minutes off the clock. Their extra point split the uprights and Xavier took the lead with 63 seconds remaining in the game.

Xavier’s ensuing kick-off resulted in a touchback, backing the Little Hawks up to their own 20. The task was tall, but City High’s offense was up to the challenge. The Little Hawks used their passing game to push the Saints’ D down the field to what I think was the Xavier 12. At this point I could feel my legs shaking. With 3.5 seconds left on the clock, the very kid who missed two extra points drilled a field goal to put the Little Hawks ahead 26-24. The home stands went crazy. I looked over and my dad was jumping up and down on the bleacher seat. After a kick-off with 1.8 seconds left, the game was finished.

My dad called it the best high school football game he had ever seen — on par with the epic 1992 Bettendorf-City High match-up. I didn’t go to that game, but I did attend an almost equally legendary 2005 Bettendorf-City High match-up with Mervgotti, when the Little Hawks won the game on a last-minute bomb.