I saw two playoff games this weekend and both saw the winning teams wind up with 50-plus points and invoke the mercy-rule running clock for virtually the entire second half.
But they were very different games.
First of all, the local teams I was covering were on opposite ends of the routs. St. Mary Catholic Central blew out Allen Park Cabrinin 59-7 Friday night and Gibraltar Carlson was blasted by Inkster Saturday afternoon.
The second difference was the way that the winning coaches handled the rout.
SMCC’s Jack Giarmo went out of his way to keep the score from being worse. The Falcon starters became spectators in the second half. After running four four touchdowns in the first half, T.J. Lovell never touched the ball after the intermission. SMCC started kneeling down with the ball with eight minutes left in the game.
Inkster, on the other hand, didn’t show that kind of class. Two Viking touchdowns in the second half came on long passes. There was no need to rub it in against a clearly out-manned Carlson squad.
Remember the name Devin Gardiner. The Inkster quarterback, who stands 6-4 and is nearly 200 pounds, is an incredible athlete. The junior is drawing interest from Michigan, Michigan State and many of the elite college football programs in the country.
SMCC is the only Monroe County Region team still alive in the playoffs. That isn’t a huge surprise with the exception of Airport’s loss to Trenton. Ida and Summerfield got tough draws, getting sent on the road to play undefeated opponents.
Milan also had a tough assignment, making a trip to Chelsea. I felt bad for the Big Reds not getting a home game with an 8-1 record, then they lost all the momentum they gained from taking an early 14-0 lead when a power failure caused a delay of nearly two hours.
Airport was favored against Trenton, but fell into an early hole and could never recover. An interesting side note about Trenton – the Trojans wound up playing four Region schools this season (Jefferson, Monroe, Carlson and Airport).
So, it’s on to the second week of the playoffs for SMCC. Let’s hope that the weather is as perfect as it was Friday night.