Super Sunday Plus

Championship games like the Super Bowl, are best when they contain drama; hard-fought contests with enough plot twists to keep you guessing how the thing will turn out. Not that the score has to be close throughout the game. In fact, one team might grab a big lead initially, only to see the other team mount a determined come-back.

Local sports fans savvy enough to have tuned in to the Wazoo Sports Network on Super Sunday to watch the 15th Region champs Betsy Layne Bobcats play for the All A Classic title got to see that scenario not once but twice in the same day.

In this contest, the Bobcats took it to their opponents, Louisville DeSales in the first half, holding the Colts to one field goal in the second quarter, and had an astounding 25-11 half-time lead. We can only imagine the feelings of the players on either team at the break, but you can bet both coaches had their work cut out for them in trying to convince their respective teams the game wasn’t over yet.

The Super Bowl that featured the Pittsburg Steelers and the Green Bay Packers saw the Packers break out and claim a 21-10 halftime advantage. Now who could blame anyone who maybe felt like this was going to be another Super Bore? You know, one team skunks the opposition in what has been, too many times, the outcome in this most celebrated of football games. If anyone felt this way, we can only hope they didn’t tune out early, because the best was yet to come. And I don't mean the half-time show.

In Richmond, the 3rd period was a replay of the second, except that Betsy Layne and DeSales switched roles. I don’t know what Colts head coach John Mingus said in his half-time speech, but if he could bottle it, he’d make a fortune. Betsy Layne was simply overwhelmed, and a 14 point lead soon went by the wayside and all too quickly turned into a deficit.

In Dallas, the Steelers also found a way to make it interesting. They were down in the second quarter by the intimidating score of 21-3, but a TD before the half ended trimmed the deficit and made it manageable. Add a TD to start the second half, and voila, they were down by only 4 points, and anyone who’s ever played against Big Ben knows that’s easy for him to overcome.

But something fantastic happened, to both the Bobcats in their contest, and to the Green Bay Packers. Whether it was some magic wrought by their head coaches that soothed the players’ jangled nerves or something in the players that caused them to perform their own gut check, the result was the same; each team settled down nicely and got down to business.

In Richmond, Coach Newsome checked the reins and soon had his Bobcats back on course. The fourth went more evenly, and thankfully, in the end, the Bobcats had enough in them to prevail against the spirited, but luckless, Colts.

In Dallas, a combination of offensive persistence and defense secured the Packers win, and took the aptly named Lombardi Trophy back to the home of its namesake.

And that was drama enough for anybody for one day.