Casa Cabeza: Friday Night Lights: Stratford Red Devils

Sally and I went to our first high school football game as high school parents last night. That was so much fun. Our daughter Emma plays in the band. Her night was actually ludicrously complicated, but for Sally and me, well, we just sat there and watched the game.

End zone shot at the start of the second quarter. Stratford got a pick in the end zone right after this, drove down and scored. That made it 14-20.

The Red Devils were at home against Notre Dame Catholic. Notre Dame ran a run-heavy read-option set against a decidedly undersized Stratord defense. Alas, the Red Devils really only have a handful of talented players. They had trouble stopped Notre Dame's power running up the middle, let alone containing the misdirection plays outside. However, they made some plays on offense through sheer team speed at the skill positions. Basically, they tried to run some kind of sweep run on almost every offensive snap, hoping to get one of their speed guys in space on the outside while mixing in the occasional play-action pass.

This worked well enough that Stratford was down just three at halftime. Alas, the size disparity along the lines started to show in the second half, and they wound up dropped the game 41-25.

More pictures are after the jump.

We sat next to #25's mother. He's Stratford's MLB/TE and one of the team's better players.
He had a nice reception down the field on offense.

The Dance Team at halftime.

I learned over the course of the night that my camera doesn't take very good action shots at night. At least three-quarters of the shots I took came out blurry, even shots in which I didn't think I was shooting much action. Frustrating experience.

I'm not sure if I can correct it with a setting, or if this is the price of getting a camera that makes automatic corrections based on lighting.