My alma mater Hopewell-Loudon's football team played away last night in the first round of the Division VI state playoffs. The traveled all the way across Ohio to play against Mcdonald, an undefeated team and the number one in the state squad.

The H-L Chieftains pulled it out, coming from double-digits behind and beating the number one team!

Last year H-L went to the finals and lost a heartbreaker. The year before, same thing.

This year, the Chieftains suffered two really close losses, so now they are 9-2. The last two years they went undefeated until the final championship games.

Maybe as the underdog they can triumph?

When I was going to school there (it is five miles from the town where I now live) we had no football. I played baseball, basketball and did some running in track and field. Now the school has a much larger enrollment and they have more than enough kids to field a football squad. Now the also have golf, volleyball, and other sports (Soccer, field hockey...)

In the trophy case, covered with decades of tarnish and dust, is a trophy. It reads: PERFECT GAME. May 16, 1958. Jon Leslie Adams. HL vs. Bettsville. No hits. No runs. No errors. No walks. HL 9 - Bettsville 0

It is the only trophy I ever won. Next to it is another similar but larger trophy for a kid who pitched two no-hitters in the same season - but nobody ever tossed a perfect game again.

I also got a single and walked twice in that game!

One of the real surprises I get going to the HL football games is that the band is so good (and large!) They are as good as some college marching bands. They play modern tunes now and the uniforms are sharp and colorful. My school colors are scarlet and gray, but the new kids call them the red and the gray. When the school was founded they decided to adopt the colors of Ohio State.

Who, by the way, beat Penn State yesterday and now must play Iowa to see who goes to the big bowl - probably the Rose Bowl.

But the most important game of the year for Ohio State is always the last one - in two weeks - at the Big House in Ann Arbor, Michigan.