Wabash Valley Youth Football Times

Tri-County's fifth and sixth graders defeated Martinsville in a hard fought contest tonight. Tri-County's coaching staff liked the performance of their running backs, and thought the Titans defense did a reasonable job stopping Martinsville. Their lines were inconsistent, and the coaches want improvement with coming off the ball and holding blcoks on offense, and want more aggressive startup on their defensive line. Martinsville's team, while fired up and aggressive last week against Oblong was somewhat flat this week. The Martinsville Bluestreaks were very slow to react to the snap on offense, and made significant errors. Coach Washburn was pleased that every player has tried his hardest this season.

For the first season ever, Martinsville has put together a fifth grade team, and hosted a half-time game this week. Coach Washburn said, "It's because we have 8 fourth graders. Its hard when you have fourth graders playing against sixth graders [on the fifth and sixth grade game]. I'll like to see what we can do when all these fourth graders are in the sixth grade."

Marshall's fifth and sixth grade had a strong victory over the Palestine-Hutsonville Pioneers this evening. The Pioneers had a dominating win against the physically larger Marshall Lions in the seventh and eighth grade tonight. Although Marshall played well, Palestine-Hutsonville was faster, quicker and appeared to execute plays more crisply. In football, both offensive and defensive plays are designed for each player to be in the key spot at the correct time. Often, the 'winner' of each play is the team which has more of its players at the critical spot before the opponent's players. Palestine-Hutsonville consistently appeared to hit those critical spots before Marshall tonight, which was the difference in the game. Marshall showed its mettle by a well executed 30 yard touchdown diving catch late in the game; Marshall certainly hit the key spots first on this play.

Oblong visits Casey-Westfield for their first conference game against the Braves. While the Panthers are likely to receive a warm welcome at Casey, this observer believes the welcome will not be reflected in the game outcome.