September 4

The opening week of high school football season always coincides with the Labor Day holiday weekend, on Friday night I was at Rossmere Stadium for the Lancaster Catholic Crusaders home opener. Dallastown (from York County, about ten miles south of York proper) was the opponent as I began my twentieth year on the PA for LCHS. I took on the Crusaders in 1996, at that time we had no lights at McCaskey Stadium so there were never any conflicts (LCHS played Friday nights, JPM played Saturday afternoons). That changed in '99 when JPM joined the Friday Night Club but the good folks at LCHS have always understood and are glad to have me there when I am available. I arrived at the stadium at 5:30 and learned that the game was in a lightning delay. The rules on that are very explicit: when there is lightning in  the area the teams are not allowed on the field even to warm up much less play the game. The game finally got started at 7:45 and didn't wind down until almost 10:30. Dallastown scored first but missed the extra point to lead 6-0, the Crusaders responded quickly on their next possession. Quarterback Brian Downey found wideout Andrew Bertz over the middle for a 76-yard catch-and-run TD, kicker Connor Rathsam added the PAT for a 7-6 Crusader lead at halftime. In the third quarter Dallastown scored twenty unanswered points, in the closing moments Downey hit Christian Sweigart in the end zone for a cosmetic score to bring the final to 26-14 in the visitors' favor. LCHS is at home again on the 11th but I am absent for the game at McCaskey, my next time at Rossmere is on October 9.Take care, thanks for reading.