Fortunately, Unfortunately

Fortunately, the Stallions won again. That’s six in a row. The score was 46-20 and Thomas had a kick off return for a touchdown at the beginning of the second half. Unfortunately, I missed his run back. I spent the second half of the game in the emergency room at Grace Hospital in Morganton. During the first half, Noah who incidentally was one of the guys on the trekking trip with Andrew this summer got hurt in a pile up on a tackle. His shoulder was extremely painful and the team nurse determined that he really needed to go to the ER. Since his parents were in Georgia at a wedding and unable to be at the game, another mom and I took him. Fortunately, nothing was broken. His shoulder joint was bruised and may have some separation, but they gave him pain medicine and a sling and we were on our way back to the field. And, fortunately, we got back to the game with a minute and a half remaining and got to see the final plays.

It was a hard fought game. We had defeated Asheville in the first game of the season and they were not going down this time without a fight. It looked at the beginning of the game like they just might have it in them to win this time. They were even ahead at one point in the first half. Fortunately, the Stallions battled back and ended the first half in the lead. Unfortunately, throughout the game, there were some short fuses and hot tempers. Unfortunately, one of the players was ejected from the game for unsportsmanlike conduct. Unfortunately, there were a couple of injuries and at the end of the game, our guys looked spent. Thomas was hit once on the thigh and is sporting a huge bruise and swollen leg. His arm is also a mosaic of black and blue. Fortunately, this is the Stallions bye week and there is no game on Saturday, so the guys will have a chance to rest, recover, and refocus.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was looking forward to driving up with a car full of teenagers. I thoroughly enjoyed the drive up and back with them. We (mostly they) talked, listened to music, and played some car games. I got to know them all a bit better and am now looking forward to Kaye’s promised lemon chess pie which she said she’d make for me sometime!

One more game on October 28^th ends the regular season. After that is the Pioneer Bowl, November 4^th, back in Morganton, and then the NACA tournament in Tennessee, November 7-10. Fortunately, unfortunately the season is coming to an end. We’ll all welcome the time for other pursuits – namely school and college applications for Thomas – be we’ll sure all miss the fun and excitement of Stallions football.