The Haywagon Bowl Rides Again

A few years back I had what I thought was a good idea. I thought that some farmer down in the Hamden area should donate a few acres of flat hayfield, and that Walton and Delhi should together chip in to turn it into a football field….a place where Delhi and Walton would play all their games. Nothing at all fancy mind you, just throw down some lines and put up some simple goal posts. For bleachers, we could build some tiered seating using some square bales. How about cheerleaders in overalls? Maybe the halftime show would be the farmer’s cows walking across the field on their way to milking. A nice way to preserve the Delaware County game.

Haha, even Delhi and Walton are different places now. Sure, we still have the farms and the farm kids. But when a Walton person said that Delhi was turning a little bit into a Yuppie town a while back, a part of me wondered if it was true. Now I won’t go into how I think this is bad or good or whatever. Times change, and I completely understand that and will always have to deal with it. But I still do like the feelings that fall and particularly Pumpkin Weekend bring about. Maybe our area won’t remain the same kind of rural atmosphere that it has been, but I at least enjoy still thinking of it that way on occasion. Wouldn’t my idea help preserve it more?

Well, on paper this looks like another big weekend, reminiscent of 4 years ago. Then, it was Walton in their first year of class D play (ranked #1) going up against Delhi, who remained in class C (and was ranked #4). Delhi of course fought a good fight and came out on top with a 12-6 victory after a late long run by Brenton Hood got us the win. Walton proceeded to melt down somewhat after that, losing by big margins to Oxford and Deposit, and didn’t even make the playoffs. Well, this year is the first year of Walton making another move, this time to class C, while Delhi remains in class D (and if our farm families don’t get to procreating, we will be a SMALL class D if things keep going the way they are going). This year, Walton is ranked #8 in class C, while Delhi is ranked #4 in class D. Both are undefeated, just like in ‘05. Twilight zone music. Haha.

I’m not all that sure what to think about either team this year to tell you the truth. Walton has underperformed my expectations a bit – they returned their top 2 rushers, and even though they lost several linemen, they are typically a linemen factory. And them giving up 37 to Sidney last week REALLY had me scratching my head. That just doesn’t happen without Zurn and Simonds suiting up for Sidney. I actually stated on the Syracuse forum that I thought #4 was pretty generous for us. I won’t say whether I think we are or are not that good. I just don’t think we’ve demonstrated that level as of yet. I might feel better had Liberty fared better last weekend, but Sullivan West took it to them better than we did. And while I hope Hancock is on the way back up, they currently don’t have a reputation of world beater.

We are doing well I think, but we need to do better about these slow starts. Liberty almost made us pay big time. Had that fumble return not been called back, who knows how that game would have ended. But, alas, we lived and we fight another day. I will understand if our offense starts a bit slow. We very rarely move well against the Woodchucks. But our defense needs to be there from the very first down. Walton’s Hanley will take it to the house if we are not. They are capable of dominating us if we are not careful. And this year we won’t get another try at redemption.

Just like I say every year, focus – block hard, run hard, throw well, catch the ball, react on defense with speed, tackle securely…..if we do that to the abilities that our players have, we’ll be right in the thick of this game.

Now, for entertainment purposes only, two items…..

I posted this one in 2005, and thought it was still pretty funny, so have a look…..

Top Ten Bad Things That Can Happen Saturday

Secondly, in the vein of romanticizing the Delaware County nature of our towns, I wrote a new love story, read here…..

OK, picks, once again, Friday night started very well, with just one wrong answer, but then things melted down a bit on Saturday. I ended up with a weekend record of 19-5 (0.792), which I guess isn’t all that bad. For the two week total, I’m 40-9 (0.816), so I’m over 0.800 running total for 2 weeks in a row! For week 3, I think we will see…..Groton over Candor, Waverly over Newark Valley, Corning East over Southside (but that’s a tough one), Greene over Unatego (starting to think Greene will beat Walton or Forks), Lansing over Trumansburg, Maine-Endwell over Dryden, Watkins Glen over Notre Dame (what a cliff they went over), Corning West over Vestal, Harpursville over Oxford, BG over Hancock, Avon over Southern Springs, Whitney Point over UVE, Forks over Sidney, Owego over Oneonta, Moravia over SVE, Chenango Valley over Sus Valley, Tioga over Edison, Johnson City over Norwich, Binghamton over EFA, Windsor over Ithaca (Windsor is an outstanding 0-2 team, don’t want to go 0-3), Newfield over Odessa, Seton over Deposit (though I have a funny feeling about this one), and UE over Horseheads. This is a tough week, I don’t expect good results!